A transgender woman is suing the state and two of its directors over alleged discrimination on health insurance coverage.Ìý
Kadence Krei is asking the U.S. District Court of Nebraska to put a stop to the state's discriminatory health insurance practices and for compensatory and punitive damages for denying her treatment for gender dysphoria.Ìý
Krei, who worked as a technician with the state developmental disabilities division for nine months from May 2018 to February, when she resigned, said she had a long-standing, and well-documented, diagnosis of gender dysphoria from multiple physicians and psychologists.Ìý
People with gender dysphoria may experience significant distress and problems functioning associated with a conflict between the way they feel and think of themselves and their physical or assigned gender, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
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Krei has been living as a woman and on hormone therapy since 2016. Her treating physicians and psychologists have determined gender reassignment surgery is medically necessary to treat her gender dysphoria, according to the complaint.Ìý
United Healthcare, the plan administrator for the state insurance plan, universally recognizes the treatment as medically necessary, according to the lawsuit. But the state plan as customized for its employees excludes coverage for services or drugs related to gender transformations.
"Jennifer Norris, a representative of Administrative Services for the State of Nebraska, further clarified that 'the decision to include transgendered-related surgeries will come by legal requirements or by decisions made by top officials in the state of Nebraska,'" the complaint said.Ìý
The Nebraska plan does cover hormone replacement, breast construction, vaginoplasty and related services for a person born a female, but not for a person born male.Ìý
So the state has deprived Krei coverage for medically necessary treatments based on her sex, the complaint said, even though the Nebraska plan states members are entitled to medically necessary services and supplies under the direction of a physician.Ìý
Because of the discriminatory exclusion Krei alleged, she was deprived of a valuable employee benefit provided to every other state employee who is not transgender, she said. And she has been forced to pay out-of-pocket for medically necessary treatments.Ìý
"The Nebraska plan's discriminatory exclusion lacks any rational basis and is grounded in sex stereotypes, discomfort with gender nonconformity, and moral disapproval of people who are transgender," Krei alleged.Ìý
Krei said that while working for the state, she also experienced additional discrimination from her shift and human resources supervisors, who refused to call her by her female name and refer to her by female pronouns, even in informal conversations. That is known as deadnaming and misgendering.
The complaint said the supervisors acted with malice and reckless indifference to her with those refusals, and she eventually resigned from her job and moved out of state because of the discrimination against her. She found the discrimination to be "overwhelming, intolerable and damaging to her mental and physical health."Â Â
In March, Krei said she had also filed charges with the Nebraska Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for employment discrimination based on sex, which were assigned to an investigator. The commission also granted her the option of suing.Ìý