Georgia employees who seek transgender health care through the State Health Benefit Plan will now be allowed to get treatment to assist in their transition after the state settled a lawsuit brought by three transgender men.
The men sued the state last year after being denied coverage for treatment they were prescribed to assist in their transition..
According to a settlement agreement, the State Health Benefit Plan will remove stipulations in its guidelines that exclude covering treatments that are prescribed to treat gender dysphoria, the medical diagnosis for many transgender people. Gender dysphoria is often treated by procedures such as plastic surgery and hormone therapy.
Two transgender men — Micha Rich, an accountant at the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts, and Benjamin Johnson, a media clerk at a Bibb County elementary school — and an unnamed transgender young adult dependent son of an unnamed Division of Family and Children’s Services employee said in their lawsuit that they had been denied coverage by the state health plan.
“I am thrilled to know that none of my trans colleagues will ever have to go through what I did,” Rich said. “I hope this is a new day for my beloved state of Georgia in its treatment of trans and nonbinary people.”
The state will also pay the men $365,000 to cover a portion of their legal fees.
The attorney general’s office, which represents the state in legal matters, declined to comment.
Rich and Johnson have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Doctors can prescribe testosterone for various reasons, such as to address issues with libido in men or hot flashes in women. But since Johnson’s testosterone prescription is to aid his transition, his health care plan wouldn’t cover it.
This is at least the third time the state has settled a challenge of a state health plan due to its transgender treatment exclusion. The University System of Georgia settled one suit in 2018. And last year, the state settled a lawsuit after patients on Medicaid — the public health program that provides care to the poor and disabled — were denied transgender treatment. In all three settlements settlements, the health care programs removed the transgender treatment exclusion.
The most recent settlement comes the same year that Georgia passed a law banning health care providers from providing certain treatments to transgender children.
The families of transgender children have challenged that law in federal court, calling it “a pretext for discrimination against transgender individuals.” The state has argued that the law protects children from taking steps toward gender transition that are permanent.
A federal judge initially blocked the law from being enforced during the legal process but reinstated it after an appeals court ruling allowed an Alabama transgender law to stand.
Georgia’s law bans health care professionals from giving hormones such as estrogen and testosterone to transgender minors. Doctors also are not allowed to perform surgeries on children seeking to align with their gender identity.
Federal district judges have stopped similar laws from taking effect in other states. But the laws have been reinstated by U.S. appeals courts in the 11th and 6th circuits. The 11th Circuit handles cases from Georgia, Alabama and Florida.
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