Trans residents sue Florida over gender-affirming Medicare ban

Dekker, who is transgender, had undergone chest surgery three months before.

Although Dekker had been taking testosterone injections for years, he said he decided to get top surgery because of the shifting political and social climate — as more states, including Florida, try to roll back access to gender-affirming care.

“I was afraid that if I didn’t get the ball rolling, that I would not be able to have surgery covered in the future,” he said. Because Dekker receives disability benefits — they are his only source of income — he was able to pay for the procedure through Medicaid, just as he has done for his hormone therapy.

But according to a rule approved by Florida health officials last month, Dekker and other trans patients no longer can use Medicaid to pay for their gender-affirming care.

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Dekker and three other trans Floridians are fighting back against the policy.

On Wednesday morning, LGBTQ and health advocacy groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida challenging the state’s new Medicaid exclusion. The complaint was filed on behalf of Dekker and Brit Rothstein, as well as two minors, Susan Doe (represented by parents John and Jane Doe) and K.F. (represented by mother Jade Ladue). The lawsuit argues that Florida’s policy, which went into effect last month, violates the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights and federal nondiscrimination statutes, because it categorically denies them treatment on the basis of their gender identity.

Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, which is named in the lawsuit, couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

The state’s Medicaid exclusion occurs amid a larger effort, in Florida and elsewhere, to roll back access to gender transition care, particularly for trans youths. Conservative lawmakers argue that these policies are meant to protect children and families from harmful procedures they may later regret.

Gender-affirming care is “critical and lifesaving” for transgender Floridians, said Simone Chriss, the director of the Transgender Rights Initiative at the Southern Legal Counsel, one of the groups involved in the lawsuit.

“It’s important that we dispel the myths that allow people to believe that bans like this are protecting anyone,” Chriss said. “They are harming people and denying them access to care that has been deemed medically necessary for them.”

Omar Gonzalez-Pagan of Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ civil rights organization also challenging the rule, added that the procedures banned for trans patients are still covered for cisgender Medicaid patients using them to treat other…