The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of two University of Wisconsin-Madison employees who were denied insurance coverage for gender reassignment surgery.
The Wisconsin Group Insurance Board had allowed for the coverage back in July based on a provision in the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), but (reluctantly) agreed to eliminate it at the behest of the state Department of Justice beginning on February 1.
The Wisconsin DOJ contends that coverage for such surgery is “based on a misreading of the law, and that transition-related care is not medically necessary,” the Wisconsin State Journal reports.
The ACLU suit on behalf of plaintiffs Alina Boyden and Shannon Andrews argues the opposite.
According to the lawsuit:
Boyden, a teaching assistant and a doctoral candidate in anthropology at UW-Madison, began to transition to female while in college in California in 2002 and 2003. Her North Carolina driver’s license identifies her as female, and everyone at UW knows her as a woman.
Boyden filed a complaint against UW-Madison in 2015 for discriminating against her by excluding coverage for gender transition care. In May 2016, she requested pre-approval of sex reassignment surgery from her insurer, Dean Health Plan, but was denied.
In mid-July, when GIB and ETF amended the state insurance plan policy, Boyden again requested pre-approval for surgery but was denied until the change in the plan was effective on Jan. 1. Even after she re-applied in January, pre-approval was denied.
Andrews is a research assistant in the Clinical Sciences Center, part of the UW Carbone Cancer Center. She presented as female outside of work, but came out as transgender to co-workers in June 2014. She is female in all of her personal identification.
In the fall of 2015, Andrews had surgery in Pennsylvania to treat her gender dyphoria, but her claims for coverage, submitted to Wisconsin Physicians Service, were denied.
In addition to asserting the exclusion of such surgery violates the ACA, the suit claims the plaintiffs’ equal rights were violated.
“All that transgender people like Alina and Shannon are asking for is to be treated like everyone else, and that includes respect and coverage for the health care you need,” said the ACLU’s John Knight.
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