HRC Blog

Late last Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released two funding announcements on sexuality education that included language focused on LGBT and questioning youth. For the first time, language in the funding announcements for federal sexuality education dollars encouraged states to consider “the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth” and asked states to ensure that programs funded with these dollars are “inclusive of and nonstigmatizing toward” LGBT and questioning participants.

In the wake of a recent incident experienced by a transgender woman who faced degrading treatment at the hospital, today HRC called on Ball Memorial Hospital (BMH) in Muncie, Ind., to immediately adopt an LGBT inclusive patient nondiscrimination policy and train all hospital staff on compliance.

Last year, the Delaware legislature passed a non discrimination bill prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment. Governor Markell stepped up to protect state employees from discrimination on the basis of gender identity as well as sexual orientation. These actions guaranteed state employees could not be excluded from health coverage, but did not protect the families of LGBT employees nor did it address access to pensions for their families.

Yesterday, the Office of Personnel Management published a final rule in the Federal Register that permits the same-sex domestic partners of federal employees to utilize the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP). Unlike many other benefits for federal employees such as health insurance and retirement plans, the cost of FLTCIP is borne entirely by the employee, and thus opening up this program to same-sex partners did not require a statutory change. (HRC continues to work with our congressional leaders to pass the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, which would provide those important benefits.) Long term care insurance helps cover the cost of lengthy hospitalization, nursing care or other extended care that is usually not covered by traditional health insurance.

Like the nation's top private companies, colleges and universities are removing discriminatory transgender exclusions from their health insurance plans in order to provide more inclusive insurance for students and staff. On many campuses today, much of the activism is centered on transgender and genderqueer issues, such as adding gender identity to the school’s non-discrimination policy and implementing gender-neutral housing and locker room facilities. A newer area of focus is ensuring that health insurance policies provide transgender-inclusive coverage.