https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/washington-state-passes-bill-to-cover

>Washington State made history on Wednesday when it became the first state in the country to pass legislation increasing access to hormone therapy.

>HB 1971 declares that health care plans who cover hormone treatments “must provide reimbursement for a 12-month refill of covered prescription hormone therapy obtained at one time by the enrollee,” unless a doctor prescribes otherwise or the hormone in question is a controlled substance. (Testosterone, for example, will be exempt from the policy.)

>The bill received bipartisan support in the State Senate, passing 40-9, including six Republicans. All nine votes against the bill were from the GOP.

>Senator Keith Wagoner was one such Republican who voted in favor of HB 1971. He said he he was supporting the policy in spite of “fringes” online which had “inflamed” public debate by focusing squarely on the HRT’s association with trans-affirming care.

>“That is such a small part of what this bill does,” Wagoner told the Senate. He said he was speaking out in part because his own daughter relies on hormone therapy. As a survivor of brain cancer, which impacted her pituitary gland, she will likely be taking hormones for the rest of her life. The current timeframe for receiving hormones, which may limit people to a six-month, three-month or one-month supply, is a constant stressor for his family, he said.

>“The bill will alleviate a lot of suffering,” Wagoner concluded.

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/judge-blocks-passport-ban-citing

>In a landmark decision issued late Friday, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration’s passport policy targeting transgender Americans. The executive order, which required that passport gender markers reflect a person’s assigned sex at birth, effectively reversed three decades of precedent and left many applications stalled in bureaucratic limbo. The judge ruled the policy was “arbitrary and capricious,” likely in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, and the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. The judge also ruled that the decision was based in animus and discrimination towards transgender people. While the injunction currently applies only to the named plaintiffs, a broader ruling protecting all transgender Americans is expected in the coming weeks.

>“The plaintiffs have also demonstrated a likelihood of success on their separate argument that, under any standard of review, the Executive Order and Passport Policy are based on irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans and therefore offend our Nation’s constitutional commitment to equal protection for all Americans. In addition, the plaintiffs have shown that they are likely to succeed on their claim that the Passport Policy is arbitrary and capricious, and that it was not adopted in compliance with the procedures required by the Paperwork Reduction Act and Administrative Procedure Act,” ruled the judge.

>The judge, when evaluating whether or not the transgender plaintiffs were being discriminated against in a way that likely violates their equal protection under the law, ruled that they likely were. This is because the order targets transgender people based on sex, an act that triggers a higher degree of constitutional scrutiny: “As to the first policy change, applicants are explicitly treated differently based on their sex assigned at birth. A person who identifies as female can receive a passport marked “F” if her sex assigned at birth was female, but not if her sex assigned at birth was male. Likewise, a person who identifies as male can receive a passport marked “M” if his sex assigned at birth was male, but not if his sex assigned at birth was female… Viewed from any angle, that amounts to a classification based on sex.”