A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s ruling that a Georgia county illegally discriminated against a sheriff’s deputy by failing to pay for her gender-affirming surgery.
In its ruling Monday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it was tasked with determining whether a health insurance provider can be held liable under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for denying coverage for a procedure because an employee is transgender. The three-judge panel decided in a 2-1 vote that it can and that the lower court had ruled correctly.
Houston County Sgt. Anna Lange, an investigator for the Houston County sheriff’s office, sued Sheriff Cullen Talton and the county in 2019 after she was denied coverage.
“I have proudly served my community for decades and it has been deeply painful to have the county fight tooth and nail, redirecting valuable resources toward denying me basic health care – health care that the courts and a jury of my peers have already agreed I deserve,” Lange said in a news release from the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, which represented her.
A woman who answered the phone at the sheriff’s office Tuesday said she would pass along a message seeking comment.
