HRC Comes Out Again With Their Joke That They Call “The Corporate Equality Index”

I call it a joke because that is what it is. The Human Rights Campaign assign a company a100% CEI if the company has only one of the five categories. The HRC Corporate Equality Index Guidelines state...

“At least one: Counseling by a mental health professional; pharmacy benefits covering hormone therapy; medical visits to monitor the effects of hormone therapy and other associated lab procedures; medically necessary surgical procedures such as hysterectomy; or short-term disability leave for surgical procedures”

So that means that an employer can offer mental health care to all of its employees and get a 100% CEI and still not pay for hormones, doctor office visits, lab work or surgery.

Kelley Winters writes on “The Bilerico Project,”

“Despite years of objection by health advocates for the trans-community, the HRC continues to omit medically necessary transition care as a requirement for a perfect 100% CEI score. Employees who suffer distress with their physical sex characteristics or ascribed gender role (often termed gender dysphoria) are singled out by many employers for exclusion from coverage for corrective procedures that are not excluded for other employees. By rewarding these employers with 100% scores, the HRC perpetuates this discrimination.”
…
“Where is the commitment to trans-employees who are denied access to medically necessary care as a consequence of these broken criteria? Corporations who never deserved perfect CEI scores in prior years certainly do not deserve a free pass for another fraudulent perfect score in 2010. It seems unconscionable for the HRC to prolong the suffering of gender dysphoric employees and dependents for the purpose of rewarding health care discrimination.”

Why does HRC continue to rate the Corporate Equality Index like this? I can think of two reasons, first the HRC would only qualify for a 95% CEI because they do not offer full coverage to their trans-employees and second, money, I think that they probably receive large corporate donations from companies who have a 100% rating and the HRC wants to keep them happy.