On Wednesday, the Baltimore City Board of Estimates voted to remove an exclusion from its employee health insurance plan that previously prohibited transgender city employees from obtaining coverage for gender confirmation surgery.
The Board of Estimates found that the transgender health care exclusions constituted a form of employment discrimination, under both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Fairness for All Marylanders Act, which prohibits discrimination against people on the basis of gender identity. The board then unanimously voted to remove the exclusion.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently found, in a case out of Alaska, that states or municipalities that prevent transgender employees from obtaining coverage for gender confirmation surgery may be violating those employees’ rights under Title VII.
“I’m pleased that the city has done the right thing here,” FreeState Managing Attorney Jennifer Kent said in a statement after the vote. “We will continue to fight alongside employees who are transgender to ensure that all Marylanders are treated equally in their health insurance coverage.”
The issue was first brought to the city’s attention by the LGBTQ advocacy organization FreeState Justice after its client, the Rev. Merrick Moses, the citywide LGBTQ Community Liaison for the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, was denied coverage for medically necessary transition-related health care.
Historically, state or local governments have instituted bans on gender confirmation surgery because they deemed such procedures as cosmetic and not medically necessary. But over the years, a greater understanding of transgender health care has led people to understand that gender dysphoria is a real medical condition, and that transition-related health care, including hormones or surgery, are crucial to treating it.
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia currently prohibit transgender exclusions in health care. California, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia also have provisions in place that explicitly transition-related care in Medicaid programs. In recent years, transgender residents in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have sued their states over Medicaid exclusions, which were declared unconstitutional in the Iowa and Minnesota cases.
“This issue is about fairness,” Moses said in a statement. “Baltimore City’s transgender employees should be treated fairly and with dignity, including in health insurance matters. These gender confirmation surgeries are not cosmetic procedures. These matters are medically necessary procedures for the well-being of gender diverse persons.
“Baltimore City employees, who happen to be transgender, should be able to get the health care they need to live their best lives,” Moses added. “We are very happy that Mayor Pugh has taken a stand against transgender discrimination in health care. Our community just wants to be treated with fairness, dignity, and respect, like all other human communities.”
Several high-profile Texas Republicans are calling for a ban on transgender or gender-nonconforming individuals from teaching in schools, following comments by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
Abbott made the comments during the keynote address at the annual convention of the Young Conservatives of Texas on April 20.
He seized on the story of Rachmad Tjachyadi, a former teacher from Lewisville, Texas. Tjachyadi resigned in March after Libs of TikTok posted pictures of him in dresses, tutus, and a costume of Ursula, the sea witch from The Little Mermaid.
Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little signed a bill into law prohibiting Medicaid and state employee health plans from covering the cost of gender-affirming medications and procedures for low-income transgender adults and minors.
House Bill 668 declares that public funds "shall not reimburse or provide coverage for any surgical operation or medical intervention...for purposes of altering the appearance of an individual in order to affirm the individual's perception of the individual's sex in a way that is inconsistent with the individual's biological sex."
The bill contains exemptions for certain types of surgical operations or medical interventions, such as those deemed medically necessary; those meant to force intersex people or those with "a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development" to conform to binary bodily stereotypes; and those used to help a person "de-transition" or to treat an "infection, injury, disease or disorder that has been caused or exacerbated by" gender-affirming surgery.
Electronics retail giant Best Buy offered to screen donations from its employee resource groups going to LGBTQ organizations or causes after being pressured by a conservative think tank that holds shares in the company.
According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing recently made public, Best Buy engaged in a months-long email exchange with the National Center for Public Policy Research, a self-described "nonpartisan, free-market conservative think tank."
In those emails, which began on December 11, 2023, NCPPR sent the company a shareholder proposal asking the retailer to produce -- and distribute at its annual shareholder meeting in June -- a report analyzing how its partnerships with LGBTQ organizations benefit the company's business, according to NBC News.
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