Arizona Plan Must Cover Needed Surgery, Trans Professor Says

Arizona’s employee health plan should be blocked from categorically denying payment for medically necessary gender-affirming surgery, because the exclusion unlawfully discriminates against transgender employees, a university professor told a federal court.

Russell Toomey, a transgender man whose health-care coverage is provided and paid for under the state plan, is likely to succeed on the merits of his claim that the plan’s exclusion violates Title VII’s prohibition on workplace discrimination, he told the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona Tuesday in a motion for a preliminary injunction.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year that the discrimination “on ...