Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed an amicus brief with support from 22 other states. challenge a recent court decision The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that employers who offer health insurance must also cover the costs of gender reassignment surgery for their employees, and that employers who do not comply may be held liable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“This case requires a complete overhaul by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It is difficult to overstate how radical this panel's decision is,” Marshall said.

“By interpreting a federal law mandating equal treatment in the workplace, the Court has fundamentally altered Title VII to require preferential treatment for employees who identify as transgender by requiring them to cover any medical treatment or surgery they request. The Court's rewriting of Title VII will have far-reaching consequences for employers, who will face both greater liability and less clarity about the extent to which the law applies.”

“The court must correct this ruling.”

The case in question that led to the court's decision occurred after a sheriff's deputy in Houston County, Georgia, sought male-to-female gender reassignment surgery. The deputy was told his employer's insurance company would not cover the procedure, and he sued under Title VII, which prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

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A divided court panel ultimately ruled that an employer could be held liable for violating Title VII by failing to provide operating funds.

The amicus brief explains some of the logic behind the challenge.

“Even if men and women can, more or less generally, take the same medications or receive the same 'treatments,' coverage decisions based on different diagnoses and corresponding treatment recommendations are not discriminatory because the decisions themselves do not mean that anyone is treated less than someone else because of their sex.”

“The 'cure' is simply not the same.”

In addition to Alabama, the states of Florida and Georgia, which are affected by the 11th Circuit decision, also led the arguments. Other states joining the lawsuit are Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Austin Shipley is a staff writer for Yellow Hammer News. You can follow him on X. @ShipleyAusten