Insurance.

Those of you who follow my blog, know what I think about the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), well it is not all bad. I give them credit for tightening up their requirements for their Corporate Equality Index (CEI). In the past, a company could get a 100% CEI rating by just offering to cover just one of the five choices and most companies chose mental health care benefits. Now more companies are starting to cover surgery for their trans-employees in order to keep their coveted 100% rating becuase the tightening of the requirements.

More companies covering transgender surgery
MSNBC/AP
By Lisa Leff
2/21/2011

SAN FRANCISCO — When Gina Duncan decided to undergo the medical treatment that would make her a woman, she had plenty to fear. The reactions of her children, her professional colleagues and friends. How her body would respond to hours on the operating table. If, at the end of it, she would look female enough so strangers wouldn't gawk.

What the Orlando mortgage banker didn't have to be anxious about was how she would pay for two of her surgeries. Her employer of 10 years, Wells Fargo, included breast augmentation and genital reconstruction as coverable expenses under its employee health plan. Duncan was told the San Francisco-based bank already had had 16 other employees transition to new genders and assigned a benefits specialist to walk her through the process.
[…]
With little fanfare, more and more large corporations, including Coca-Cola, Campbell Soup and Walt Disney, have expanded their insurance coverage to meet the needs of transgender workers. The trend follows a concerted push by transgender rights advocates to get employers and insurers to see sex reassignment the way the American Medical Association does — as a medically indicated rather than an optional procedure.
[…]
American Express, Kraft Foods, AT&T, Yahoo!, Eastman Kodak, Sears, Morgan Stanley, Price Waterhouse, General Motors and State Farm are among 85 large businesses and law firms that cover the cost of at least one surgery, according to a 2010 survey by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights group.
[…]
Some businesses see covering the cost of transgender surgery as not only an important human resources statement, but good business sense.

"Wells Fargo elected to offer this benefit to be competitive as an employer and also to support our comprehensive corporate commitment to diversity," company spokesman Mary Eshet said.

Many companies still see coverage for trans-people as elective treatment similar to cosmetic surgery, but it is not. The American Medical Association (AMA), the American Psychological Association (APA) and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) all said that health care coverage for surgery for trans-people are a medical necessity. In addition, the IRS allows tax deductions for all medical procedures dealing with transition, including electrolysis.

It is time for companies to end their discrimination against their transgender employees.