Judge Shows Hand On Case Over Insurance Coverage Of Sex-Reassignment Surgery
Josef Robinson is attempting to sue Dignity Health of San Francisco for not covering his procedure.
San Francisco Chronicle:
Judge Hints At Support In Suit Over Sex-Reassignment Surgery
A Bay Area federal judge is suggesting she intends to rule that a transgender employee can sue his employer under sex-discrimination law for denying insurance coverage for sex-reassignment surgery. “This is a sex-based procedure. It couldn’t be more sex-based,” U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of Oakland said Tuesday to a lawyer defending the refusal of Dignity Health of San Francisco and one of its out-of-state hospitals to cover the employee’s operation. The lawyer, Barry Landsberg, replied that the hospital’s policy was gender-neutral because “it applies equally to men and women.” Federal law, he argued, prohibits discrimination against males or females, “but there is not a third sex.” (Egelko, 9/28)