The ACLU filed a lawsuit against one of Georgia’s health agencies alleging the state unconstitutionally denied two Black transgender women care, violating the Medicaid Act and the Affordable Care Act.
The two plaintiffs, 45 and 60-years old, enrolled in Medicaid but did not qualify for gender affirmation surgery in Georgia because they are transgender, according to the suit filed against the Georgia Department of Community Health.
“If they were not transgender, Georgia Medicaid would cover the procedures they seek. This is discrimination, and it is against the law,” argued ACLU staff attorney Taylor Brown in a statement.
“At a time when many in our country are having long-overdue conversations about racial disparities in our health care system, it is important that the health care needs of Black transgender people ... are a part of that conversation," Brown continued.
Georgia is one of 10 states that prohibit transgender adults from undergoing gender confirmation surgeries, according to the nonprofit. Medicaid in Georgia does, however, cover surgical treatments prescribed to treat gender dysphoria for non-transgender people, the lawyers said.
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The union estimates Medicaid insures 5,000 transgender Georgias and wants the court to grant the lawsuit class-action status.
“The exclusion, which [the agency] has continuously enforced since 1993, expressly prohibits Georgia Medicaid coverage for “[t]ranssexual surgery,” the lawsuit states, calling it a categorical exclusion. “Georgia Medicaid is unlawfully discriminating against [the plaintiffs] on the basis of their sex and transgender status.”
“Oftentimes I have felt like giving up because I do not feel complete,” said 60-year-old Gwendolyn Cheney in the ACLU’s news release. “I don’t want to just exist. I want to live. I want to be out in the world and be accepted.”
Shon Thomas, a 45-year-old Black transgender woman in Atlanta, said the fight to live authentically in the South has left her depressed.
“It’s like down here in the South, we are only tolerated, not accepted,” Thomas admitted. “This case, fighting for my health, is the whole world to me, my whole life.”