Minnesota Judge Rules Medicaid Coverage Ban for Transgender Surgeries “Unconstitutional”

A district court judge in Minnesota ruled this week that transgender people on Medicaid have the right to gender reassignment surgery, lifting a decade-long statewide ban on transgender surgeries for those on Medicaid. Ramsey County Judge William Leary granted 64-year-old Evan Thomas,

who sued the Department of Human Services, the right to have gender reassignment surgery previously denied to him by state law, the Star Tribune reported. Leary rejected the state’s claims that the coverage ban was due to budgetary constraints and that the suit was moot because changes to Medicaid at the federal level would have allowed the surgeries come January. READ MORE