Evan Thomas with help from an LGBT advocacy group and the ACLU has brought a sue against the state of Minnesota over a lack of public insurance coverage for gender reassignment surgery.
The suit comes ten years after Minnesota dropped that surgery since 2005 although its two existing state plans continue to cover counseling and hormone therapy for transgender individuals focused on making a hormonal and, ultimately, surgical transition.
While Thomas has been on a regime of testosterone hormone therapy since 2013, his attempts to move to the next step – surgery – have been stymied by a lack of coverage.
"Here is the state just slamming this door in my face and saying ‘no, you have to stop here, if you're in pain that's just too bad,’" Thomas told local media outlet KSTP.
As a result, Thomas has struggled with “dysphoria-induced depression.”
“I can't escape the dissonance between my body as it is and the way my brain insists it should be," he writes on for a blog posting on the ACLU’s website. “If I had a flat, firm chest instead of the weight and softness of breasts, I could hold my head up and stand tall and proud. I could look in the mirror and be at peace with my own image. I could, maybe, learn to love my whole self."
Some 10 states now allow public insurance to foot the bill for the surgery. Thomas’s suit notwithstanding, Minnesota legislators are expected to eventually debate whether their Midwestern state will resurrect its own coverage.
How quickly they move to discuss that possibility is seen as a litmus test for the state’s acceptance of transgender equality, say lobby groups.
