Georgia sued over gender surgery ban

ATLANTA — Two transgender women are suing the state of Georgia, saying they’ve been denied access to gender-affirming health care under its Medicaid program.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the federal lawsuit Thursday in Atlanta on behalf of Shon Thomas and Gwendolyn Cheney. The suit says Georgia bans gender-affirming surgeries in violation of the U.S. Constitution, the Affordable Care Act and the Medicaid Act.

A spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Community Health, which is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond Thursday to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit.

Many surgical treatments that are used to treat gender dysphoria are covered by Georgia Medicaid when they are used to treat non-transgender people for other conditions, the lawsuit says. Georgia’s Medicaid exclusion “incorrectly characterizes their gender-confirming health care needs as ‘cosmetic’ and/or ‘experimental or investigational,’ when the medical community recognizes that they are effective treatments for gender dysphoria,” the lawsuit says.

Thomas, 45, and Cheney, 60, who both live in the Atlanta area, have been denied care that would be available to them if they weren’t transgender, ACLU attorney Taylor Brown said in a news release.

“This is discrimination and it is against the law,” Brown said. “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, like Ms. Thomas and Ms. Cheney, are a part of that conversation.”