Can Anything Offset The Feelings You Get…

…When you are discriminated against?

So many feeling flash before you when you face discrimination; anger, fear, the self-loathing, and many more mixed emotions surface in a fraction of a second. Especially when your health is involved.

Transgender women celebrate monumental court win
A jury awarded the pair a total of $780,000 for the discrimination they experienced.
ThinkProgress
By Zack Ford
October 30, 2018

It was the first case outcome of its kind: a total of $780,000 in damages for two transgender women who were denied medically necessary health care because of their gender identity. It was also likely the first time a court found that facial feminization surgery was medically necessary.

The women now hope that if eight jurors in Wisconsin could be convinced that transgender people deserve access to health care related to their identities, others might be inspired to fight for what they deserve, too.

In September, a federal judge ruled that Wisconsin had violated the rights of Alina Boyden and Shannon Andrews by enforcing an exclusion in the state employee health insurance plan on any treatments related to a gender identity transition. U.S. District Judge William Conley agreed with judges around the country that discriminating against transgender people constitutes discrimination on the basis of their sex — the very opposite of the trans erasure the Trump administration is trying to impose.

It was an ordeal that racked them over the coals that added to their dehumanization at the hands of the state.

But Boyden and Andrews also sued for damages. This meant that even though the state had lost on its case, there would be a new trial before a jury. The women had to sit through grueling depositions, then endure cruel cross-examinations in the courtroom. Ultimately, the state’s scrutiny of their private lives won them sympathy from the jury.

“It really backfired on the state,” Andrews told ThinkProgress. “The jury was able to see the discrimination happen in front of them in real time. If I was reading their facial expressions correctly, they looked pretty angry about it.”

“Their strategy infuriated the jury more than it helped them,” Boyden added. She called the trial “gross and hamhanded.” Not only had the state already lost, its lawyers then went to the jury with a character assassination against a cancer researcher and tried to claim that a grad student was rich. “Not the brightest of strategies,” Boyden said.

The money probably helped but discrimination causes deep-seated emotional problems that can never be never erased.