AUSTIN — A proposal requiring health insurers that cover gender-affirming care to also cover adverse effects and reversal procedures is heading to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.
Another LGBTQ-related bill the House ed on Monday would limit state gender data to male or female. That legislation was sent to the Senate, which is scheduled to take up the measure in a committee hearing Thursday.
Dozens of LGBTQ-related bills were filed this session, particularly those potentially impacting transgender Texans. They range from restricting bathroom use to protecting people who misgender others to banning the affirmation of a student’s gender identity in public schools.
“It’s been made very clear this session that transphobia is the new dominating ideology of the Legislature,” Rep. Jessica González, D-Dallas, said. “In a state of over 30 million residents, we have been burning hours of legislative time, tax dollars, in front of a witch hunt on transgender Texans.”
Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Allen, framed the insurance proposal as a comionate bill for Texans whose gender transition care was covered by insurance but whose coverage for costly adverse effects or reversal procedures was denied.
“This bill is an answer to their call for relief,” Leach said.
The bill ed the Senate in April. The House voted 87-58 to send it to Abbott.
Senate Bill 1257 would require health insurers that cover or previously covered gender-affirming care to provide coverage for all adverse effects, necessary annual testing or screening and care needed to manage, reverse or recover from gender-transition surgery or treatment.
Such coverage would be required regardless of whether the person who received gender-affirming care did so while enrolled in the plan at the time.
Opponents called the proposal a “backdoor ban” on health care for transgender Texans, warning that it could lead to higher insurance s for everyone in the state.
Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, said the Legislature is following up its 2023 ban on gender-affirming care for minors by targeting adults.
“This is the way to get around a ban on adults getting care. You tell the insurance companies, ‘Well, if you provide this care, we will make sure that you’re on the hook for this care into infinity,’” Wu said. “We have never done that before on anything else.”
Republicans rejected all six amendments to the detransition bill that Democrats offered.
The House debated both LGBTQ-related bills for hours during its first Saturday session over Mother’s Day weekend and again Monday. The legislative session ends June 2.
“This bill is meant to protect Texans,” Leach said of the detransition bill during the Saturday session, “not to harm them.”
Meanwhile, the lawmakers approved state definitions for what’s a boy, girl, male, female, man, woman, father and mother in an 87-56 vote on Monday.
House Bill 229, which limits state government’s vital statistics data to reflect that there are only two genders, includes legislative findings that distinguish biological differences between men and women. For example, the bill notes only women can get pregnant, give birth and breastfeed and that men are generally bigger, faster and stronger.
One provision lays out how “equal” doesn’t mean the same or identical in the context of biological sex and that “separate is not inherently unequal,” echoing 19th-century language from the U.S. Supreme Court that legalized racial segregation.
The bill cites sports, prisons, domestic violence shelters, locker rooms and restrooms as examples of “legitimate reasons to distinguish between the sexes” to protect biological women’s safety and privacy.
Rep. Ellen Troxclair, R-Lakeway, called the proposal a women’s bill of rights.
“The biological differences between men and women have been universally understood since the beginning of time,” Troxclair said. “With this bill, Texas law will now reflect that reality. By defining what a woman is today, we are protecting their basic rights to privacy, safety and fairness.”
Opponents called the measure an attack on the LGBTQ community that seeks to erase transgender, nonbinary and intersex Texans from existence by forcing their complex identities into one of two boxes.
Democrats unsuccessfully proposed seven amendments. One sought to strike the separate-but-equal language from the bill, while another would have added that the bill could not be construed to permit discrimination against LGBTQ people.
Troxclair’s bill would lead to more misdiagnoses and increased rates of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts among transgender people, Rep. Jolanda “Jo” Jones, D-Houston, said.
“Reducing people to male or female without recognizing lived identity or medical reality will cause harm — real and irreversible,” Jones said. “Doctors don’t treat definitions. They treat people.”
