A federal court has ruled that Florida’s ban on gender-affirming care for adults who work as state employees is discriminatory and violates their civil rights.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker of the Northern District of Florida ruled that the ban violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act because it takes the form of a coverage exclusion that bars coverage for “gender reassignment or change services or supplies” in the state employee health insurance program.
Title IX prohibits discrimination against employees or job applicants on the basis of a variety of personal characteristics, including “sex.”
But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 2020 decision that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is essentially a form of sex-based discrimination, a principle that gave three current and former Florida state employees the opportunity to challenge their coverage exclusions.
The three employees filed suit in 2020 against the Florida Department of Management Services, which administers the state’s employee insurance program.
In their complaints, the women alleged that the exclusions denied them insurance coverage for gender reassignment surgery, leaving them with only two options: pay out of pocket or forgo the surgery and delay their gender transition.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers pointed out that exclusions for gender-affirming care have existed for decades in Florida employee health plans, as well as in plans for employees in other states and plans sold by private companies.
But they argued that exclusions in Florida’s plan result in their clients and other transgender people being given less benefits and coverage compared to those given to their cisgender colleagues.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers, Southern Legal Counsel, the ACLU of Florida and Greater Miami Legal Services, argued that without the exclusions, each of the three plaintiffs would have been able to get coverage for any treatment their doctor deemed “medically necessary.”
Siding with the plaintiffs, Judge Walker held that health insurance and pension benefits are an important part of an employee’s compensation, and that the practical effect of denying or reducing such benefits solely on the basis of the employee’s sex assigned at birth is to deny that employee an “employment opportunity” because of his or her sex.
Judge Walker also ruled that treatment for gender dysphoria, like any other medical condition, should be based on an “individualized judgment” of a patient’s unique physical and mental health needs, rather than a blanket exclusion that requires a one-size-fits-all medical approach.
“As the Eleventh Circuit has held, ‘drawing a line between gender reassignment surgery and other surgeries … would intentionally create exclusion based on transgender status,'” Walker wrote in his August 1 decision. decision.
“However, an individual’s ‘transgender status’ is not relevant to employment decisions,” he said in a 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County The Supreme Court held: “Rather, discrimination on this basis requires that an employer intentionally treats individual employees differently because of their sex. Thus, excluding sex-reassignment or correctional services and supplies from health insurance coverage in a state plan is a facially discriminatory policy that violates Title VII.”
The court will hold a hearing at a later date to determine the amount that should be paid to the plaintiffs.
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
