Judge rules Georgia county can't deny gender surgery to deputy

ATLANTA >> A federal judge has found that a Georgia sheriff's office was illegally discriminating when it denied gender reassignment surgery to a deputy.

U.S. District Judge Marc Treadwell ruled June 2 that Houston County cannot exclude surgery for the transgender woman from its health insurance plan, citing a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision finding that a Michigan funeral home couldn't fire an employee for being transgender.

The case involves Sgt. Anna Lange, an investigator in the middle Georgia county who began her transition in 2017.

“I can confidently move forward with my life knowing that gender-affirming care is protected under federal law,” Lange said in a statement released by the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, which represented her. “This decision is not only a personal victory, but a tremendous step forward for all transgender Southerners who are seeking insurance coverage for medically necessary care.”

Neither Talton nor the county's lawyers responded to requests for comment.

Treadwell wrote in his order that Lange, a 16-year employee, told the sheriff and other county officials in 2018 that she wanted to begin dressing as a woman at work, while inquiring about whether Houston County's health plan would cover gender reassignment surgery.

Sheriff Cullen Talton, first elected sheriff in 1972, initially took it as a joke, Treadwell wrote, and then said he doesn't “believe in sex changes,” before ultimately granting permission for Lange to dress as a woman, but warned she would need “tough skin” to deal with her co-workers.

But the county health plan had excluded sex change surgery and drugs since 1998. Lange was denied authorization for surgery in November 2018 after county personnel director Kenneth Carter told the insurer the county wanted to keep the exclusion, even though the insurer had advised Houston County in 2016 that the rule was discriminatory under the federal Affordable Care Act.