A transgender deputy in the Houston County Sheriff’s Department has settled a case over the county’s health insurance policy, which excluded gender affirming health care.
Sgt. Anna Lange transitioned while working in the sheriff’s office in 2017, 11 years after joining the force in the middle-Georgia county. When she tried to get her gender reassignment surgery covered, the county’s health insurance denied her coverage, sparking the lawsuit in October 2019.
Lange’s attorneys argued that the county denied her coverage for the surgery, which her doctors deemed medically necessary, solely based on her gender identity. The case was brought on Lange’s behalf by the Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE).
Now, Lange’s attorneys and the county have agreed to resolve the case, according to a statement. The county agreed to make a $5,000 reimbursement payment to Lange to cover out of pocket expenses not covered by the health plan.
However, Houston County will return to the original structure of the health plan, which contains exclusions for “[s]ervices and supplies for a sex change and/or reversal of a sex change” and “[d]rugs for sex change surgery.” The county health plan will still cover non-surgical gender affirming health care.
The nearly seven-year court case cost the county around $2 million of taxpayer money in legal fees, according to A4TE.
“It was a slap in the face, really, to find out how much [the county] had spent,” Lange told ProPublica in 2023. “They’re treating it like a political issue, obviously, when it’s a medical issue.”
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