The remarkable
progress in corporate America's embrace and
support of its transgender workers shows the U.S.
competitive spirit is alive and well--and helping
boost the T part of the LGBT rainbow
I’m
interrupting my Transgender 101 Series to pass along some
big news for transgender people from this
week’s release of the 2006 Human Rights
Campaign Corporate Equality Index (CEI) and the Out and
Equal 2006 Workplace Summit in mid September.
HRC gave those of
us attending the Out and Equal Summit a sneak peak at
the 2006 CEI results released on September 19. The annual
CEI is a tool to measure how equitably companies are
treating their gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender
employees, consumers, and investors. Scoring 100% each
year is rapidly becoming essential for major employers.
This year, HRC
raised the bar to include transgender parity in at least
one of five wellness benefits, and the results are exciting.
Of the 446 companies in the survey, a total of 303
companies offer at least one of the specified benefits
for their transgender employees, and a staggering 67
offer all five. More impressively, 28% of the employers
provide health benefits for
trans-related surgical procedures.
HRC told us that
some companies are surprised to find that their health
insurance coverage excludes gender identity-related
treatments. The language is often in the master policy
because it is the “standard” offering
from the insurance company. Once employers learn this, it is
often only a matter of demanding that their insurers remove
the exclusion.
The exclusion is
standard because of fears over the cost of inclusion.
But Mary Ann Horton, in her eye-opening Out and Equal
session on "The Cost of Transgender Health Benefits,"
showed convincingly that the cost is considerably less
than that of domestic partner coverage, even when
taking into account a generous margin of error.
Horton backed up
her calculations with the experience of the City and
Country of San Francisco, which has provided
comprehensive transgender health coverage since 2001.
Their actuaries knew there were 27 transgender
municipal employees, and therefore geared up to pay
for 35 surgeries each year. But they missed the fact
that some transgender people never have surgery and those
that do generally only have it once in a lifetime.
Actual cost experience has been no worse than that for
gall bladder removal or heart surgery.
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Herman is the first transgender member of the boards of
The Point Foundation, the
national LGBT scholarship fund, and of Gay and
Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, the New
England-based LGBT legal rights organization that
filed and argued the court case that brought same-sex
marriage to Massachusetts. She is also a member of
the advisory board of the National Center
for Transgender Equality.