This Georgia County Spent $1 Million to Avoid Paying for One Employee’s Gender-Affirming Care

Georgia sheriff's deputy sought surgery as part of her gender transition, but officials refused to cover it.

Houston County paid a private law firm nearly $1.2 million to fight in federal court.

Experts say it would have cost the county to offer such coverage to all of its 1,500 health plan members.

At least 25 states are considering or have passed bills that would ban gender-affirming care for minors.

Houston County employee came out as a transgender woman to her boss and colleagues in 2017.

The county’s employee health plan would not cover any of the surgeries needed to make her body align with her gender.

The operations are on a list of procedures that the county explicitly opts out of paying for.

Houston County has spent a similar amount of money on legal fees as those states have.

University of Arizona professor Russ Toomey is suing his employer for withholding coverage for gender-affirming care.

University of Houston County says removing the exclusion could result in a “catastrophic claim,” in which a member of the county’s health plan seeks multiple surgeries in a single year that, combined, could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.