Florida Trans Employees Win Challenge to Insurance Exclusion

Florida’s employee health plan unlawfully discriminated against transgender individuals by excluding coverage for medically necessary gender-affirming care, a federal judge said.

The plan’s denial of payments for facial feminization surgery and procedures to remove transgender individuals’ testes and breasts constituted sex discrimination and violated Title VII’s workplace protections for LGBTQ+ people, the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida said Thursday.

The US Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, partially controlled the case, the court said. There, the top court held that employment “discrimination based on homosexuality or transgender status necessarily entails discrimination based ...