Omission Watch: Feminist Fluke Insists Insurers Must Fund Transgender Surgeries

March 6th, 2012 11:21 AM

The Drudge Report has linked to MRC TV's Stephen Gutowski, who dug up that the Radical Feminist Heroine of the Week Sandra Fluke thinks insurance policies shouldn't just pay for contraceptives, but for "transgender" amputations and implants.

If the national media thinks this scandal-ette deserves to go for weeks on end, where is this story? Steve reports Fluke makes her view of an amputation entitlement clear in an article she co-edited with Karen Hu in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law:


The title of the article, which can be purchased in full here, is Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons and was published in the Journal's 2011 Annual Review. I have posted a transcript of the section I will be quoting from here. In a subsection of the article entitled "Employment Discrimination in Provision of Employment Benefits" starting on page 635 of the review Sandra Fluke and her co-editor describe two forms of discrimination in benefits they believe LGBTQ individuals face in the work place:

"Discrimination typically takes two forms: first, direct discrimination limiting access to benefits specifically needed by LGBTQ persons, and secondly, the unavailability of family-related benefits to LGBTQ families."

Their "prime example" of the first form of discrimination? Not covering sex change operations:

"A prime example of direct discrimination is denying insurance coverage for medical needs of transgender persons physically transitioning to the other gender."

This so called "prime example" of discrimination is expounded on in a subsection titled "Gender Reassignment Medical Services" starting on page 636:

"Transgender persons wishing to undergo the gender reassignment process frequently face heterosexist employer health insurance policies that label the surgery as cosmetic or medically unnecessary and therefore uncovered."

To be clear, the argument here is that employers are engaging in discrimination against their employees who want them to pay for their sex changes because their "heterosexist" health insurance policies don't believe sex changes are medically necessary.

Fluke & Co. are dismayed that private insurers aren't sued by transgender activists these types of cases are filed against Medicare, Medicaid, and even the prison system: "The reason for this lack of cases is unclear. Private employee insurance plans do not more frequently cover this need, so it may be a sign that transgender employees do not see the courts as likely to provide any assistance against private employers."