Free Republic

An Obama-appointed federal judge is forcing Wisconsin taxpayers to provide costly sex reassignment surgery and hormonal procedures for low-income transgender residents who get free medical care from the government. In a recently issued ruling U.S. District Judge William M. Conley writes that Medicaid, the publicly funded insurance that covers 65.7 million poor people, cannot deny the medical treatment needs of those suffering from “gender dysphoria.” Officials estimate it will cost up to $1.2 million annually to provide transgender Medicaid recipients in the Badger State with treatments such as “gender confirmation” surgery, including elective mastectomies, hysterectomies, genital reconstruction and breast augmentation....

A transgender prisoner says she’ll pursue her fight to have Texas pay for gender reassignment surgery after suffering a loss at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A lawyer for Vanessa Lynn Gibson, born as Scott Lynn Gibson, says she’ll ask the full 5th Circuit to rehear the case after a three-judge panel upheld the state’s policy that denies funding for the reassignment surgery. The state will cover hormone and mental health care treatment. In a 2-1 ruling published Friday, the court said refusing to facilitate the surgery does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment as defined by the...

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the state's Medicaid program must cover sex reassignment surgery for transgender people. The court ruled Friday that the Iowa Department of Human Services discriminated against two women by denying their Medicaid claims for transition-related care. “The ruling means that many transgender Iowans will be able to obtain life-saving medical care that they were unable to get in the past," said John Knight with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the women. The state argued that transition-related surgeries were not covered by Medicaid because they were "cosmetic, reconstructive or plastic surgery." It specifically banned...

A federal judge in Maryland became the second to block the Trump administration’s proposal to oust transgender service members from the military — but went a step further than the prior ruling and halted a directive for the Pentagon to stop paying for gender-reassignment treatments. The preliminary injunction issued Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis comes after the prior ruling out of D.C. found that the policy banning transgender troops creates an “inherent inequality” that likely violates the Constitution. Judge Garbis wrote in his 53-page order that transgender military members who filed suit over the proposal had established...

The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday that it will pay for a soldier’s gender reassignment surgery for the first time, according to multiple reports. Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement shared by a BuzzFeed News reporter that an active-duty military member received sex-reassignment surgery Tuesday in a private hospital. “Because this service member had already begun a sex-reassignment course of treatment, and the treating doctor deemed this surgery medically necessary, a waiver was approved by the director of the Defense Health Agency,” White said. “The Supplemental Health Care Program will cover this surgery in accordance with the Department’s interim guidance...