West Virginia Medicaid Must Pay for Gender-Confirmation Surgery

Transgender Medicaid beneficiaries in West Virginia can now look to the state to pay for surgeries deemed medically necessary to treat gender dysphoria, after a federal court in the state said a blanket ban on such coverage is unconstitutional.

The Mountain Health Trust program discriminates against transgender people in violation of the Equal Protection Clause by providing coverage for medically necessary surgeries, such as hysterectomies, when they are needed by cisgender people, but not when the same or similar procedures are required by transgender people for gender-confirming reasons, the US District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia said. ...