Here We Go Again

It seems like a never ending battle against laws attacking trans people, once again it is North Carolina.

North Carolina sued again over transgender rights
The lawsuit argues the health plan for state employees violated the rights of transgender people by dropping coverage of medically necessary procedures.
NBC News
By the Associated Press
March 11, 2019

DURHAM, N.C. — North Carolina is being sued again over its treatment of transgender people, as state employees argue that their health plan violated federal law by dropping coverage of medically necessary procedures.

The lawsuit filed Monday argues the health plan for state employees violates federal health and education laws, as well as constitutional rights, by refusing to pay for hormone treatments and surgeries that it once covered. The treatments prescribed by doctors to treat gender dysphoria are described as life-saving by five current or former state employees, along with two transgender dependents, who are suing.

"We have to think of it like any medical condition that is treated by a doctor and is diagnosed," said Taylor Brown, the Lambda Legal lawyer leading the case, who is a transgender woman. "To have to live in a world that perceives you, and that assigns you, as something that you're not ... It can make life unlivable for many people. And that's why we see such high suicide rates in the transgender community."

The state employee health plan, which provides benefits for approximately 720,000 people, had covered the transition procedures for transgender people for the year 2017. But the lawsuit said coverage was excluded from the plan for the years after that under Republican State Treasurer Dale Folwell, who took office in 2017.

There is that word again… Republican.

The North Carolina lawsuit comes amid a separate three-year legal fight over North Carolina's 2016 "bathroom bill," which in many public buildings required transgender people to use restrooms matching their birth certificates. While that requirement was later rescinded, a replacement law halts new local antidiscrimination ordinances until 2020. Last year, a federal judge allowed a lawsuit to move forward challenging the replacement law's moratorium on new local measures to protect LGBT residents.

If you are trans and you voted for a Republican I know why you voted that way… you put your pocketbook ahead of your civil rights.

Don’t look for relief from the courts much longer. The Republicans have been packing the courts with anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-women rights judges. The Republicans blocked over 200 judicial appointments by president Obama including a Supreme Court justice.