ATLANTA (AP) — Conservatives’ nationwide offensive against transgender care, earlier focused on young people, is increasingly trying to cut off access for transgender adults.
With 2025 state legislative sessions still young, bills have been introduced to cut off public funding for gender affirming care for adults in at least 10 states. Georgia became the first state to move forward this year, with a panel voting 6-3 Tuesday to advance a bill to the full Senate despite pleas from public employees who would lose insurance benefits.
“It is a slap in the face to reward that service by stripping us of the health care access that we desperately need,” said Carrie Scott, a lawyer for the state and transgender woman.
The panel voted hours after a Georgia county asked an appeals court to overturn an order to pay for gender affirming care for a sheriff’s deputy.
Other states have already tried to restrict care for transgender adults. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, vetoed a bill last year that would have banned Medicaid spending on some gender affirming care. Former Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, tried to impose restrictions on adult care before his executive order was rolled back. And a 2023 Florida law requires physicians to oversee health care related to transitioning, mandating in-person appointments.
This year, bills have been introduced not only in Georgia, but Arizona, Connecticut, Kentucky, Montana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia.
LGBTQ+ advocates say Republican legislators are emboldened by President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting transgender and nonbinary people. Former President Joe Biden, by contrast, supported transgender rights.
Carl Charles, an attorney for gay rights group Lambda Legal, said Trump’s actions are “marching orders” to Republican legislators.
“Certainly the states are feeling emboldened by the maelstrom of Trump’s anti-trans orders from the White House,” Charles said.
The Georgia bill would ban spending state money on gender affirming care through state employee health plans, Medicaid and prisons.
“What this bill says is we are not going to spend state taxpayer dollars on transgender surgeries in our state," Republican Sen. Blake Tillery of Vidalia, the sponsor, told the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee.
Earlier Tuesday in a nearby courtroom, Houston County Sheriff's Sgt. Anna Lange watched as lawyers clashed before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over whether her county’s insurance plan must keep paying gender affirming care benefits she won through a federal suit.
“Trans people are people, and we deserve to be treated just like everybody else,” Lange said afterward.
Like Lange, Georgia state employees sued for benefits, with advocates winning settlements covering public university employees, Medicaid beneficiaries and state employees.
Scott and Khara Hayden, a transgender woman who is an information technology specialist, both testified they might leave state employment if benefits end on Jan. 1, 2026, as the bill proposes.
“If you approve this bill, essentially you’re going to take away the care I need to continue living," Hayden testified, saying a lack of hormone therapy would force her into early menopause.
The bill may have trouble passing the Georgia House, though.
State House Speaker Jon Burns, a Newington Republican, repeated again Tuesday that the only transgender-related legislation he backs this year is a bill to ban transgender girls and women from playing school and college sports. He said he foresees a “very narrow focus” on that measure.
The health bill explicitly blames Republican Attorney General Chris Carr for settling the state employees’ lawsuit in 2023. Tillery, the bill’s sponsor, is an ally of Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who is expected to run for governor in 2026 against Carr.
Carr has rejected the idea that he favors benefits for transgender people, with spokesperson Kara Murray saying he has a “long track record” of opposing them.
The state and employees who litigated for benefits are divided on whether a new law could reverse legal settlements. Plaintiffs say they made binding contracts, which includes a provision saying the state won’t reimpose the prohibition. But Tillery argues each year is a new health insurance contract and the state can change the terms.
“It’s our proper duty to write the law and it’s the court’s duty to interpret that law," Tillery said.
Even if the state can scrap the settlements, opponents say they'd sue again to strike down unconstitutional denial of benefits to transgender people because of their sex. The Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that under a 1964 civil rights law, employers couldn't discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender employees “because of sex.”
“It’s discriminatory, 100%, that they’re specifically targeting the transgender individuals and the care that they need,” Hayden said.
