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State Blocks Some Transgender Health Care it Considers 'Cosmetic': Critics

By Rosa Goldensohn | August 11, 2015 11:47am
 Protesters rallied for trans healthcare in Washington in 2013.
Protesters rallied for trans healthcare in Washington in 2013.
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Flickr/ Ted Eytan

CIVIC CENTER — A year after the state agreed to lift a ban on providing medically necessary gender-reassigning services to transgender New Yorkers through Medicaid, officials are still refusing to provide services by deeming some procedures merely cosmetic, critics say.

New York State Department of Health's Medicaid rules for transgender people transitioning their gender currently exclude voice therapy, drugs to promote hair growth or loss and breast augmentation, which lawyers say are fundamentally medically necessary to the process.

Under the state rules, breast surgery would only be covered for transgender people transitioning to female "in certain limited circumstances."

The state's rules also prohibit coverage for gender reassignment surgery in anyone under 21 if the surgery results in sterilization, and for hormone therapy for those under 18, according to the Legal Aid Society, Sylvia Rivera Law Project and Wilkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, who filed a class action lawsuit against the state last year.

The exceptions lack "an adequate basis in medical or scientific fact," and show "a fundamental misunderstanding of the treatment of GD/GID [gender dysphoria/gender identity disorder] and the importance of such procedures to the treatment and well-being of transgender individuals," according to the class action lawsuit.

The state Department of Health did not respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit moved forward last month when a federal court judge sided with the plaintiffs and denied the state's motion to dismiss the case.

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