Full Eleventh Circuit agrees to reconsider case over trans healthcare exclusions
A three-judge panel sided with the transgender employee in her lawsuit in May, but now the full — and more conservative — court agreed to reconsider that ruling.

Chris Geidner
Aug 15, 2024



On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit signaled an interest in restricting civil rights protections for transgender people even further than the conservative southern appeals court has already done. ... In a brief order, the full court announced that it granted the request by Houston County, Georgia, to rehear a case over whether a county can be sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because its insurance policy excludes gender-affirming surgery for a transgender woman, Anna Lange.

Judge Charles Wilson, a Clinton appointee, wrote for the 2-1 panel in May, “We hold that it can.” In his relatively brief 15-page opinion, Wilson upheld the district court’s decision finding that the exclusion violates Title VII through its “plain discrimination against Lange because she is transgender.”

Lange, who has worked for the Sheriff’s Office since 2006, was formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2017. After informing her employer that she would be living as a woman, the vaginoplasty later deemed medically necessary by her healthcare providers was denied under the exclusion and she sued under Title VII.

The panel upheld a lower court’s decision that the county could be sued for the discriminatory exclusion. ... Thursday’s order, however, means that a majority of the full court voted to revisit the May decision.

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