{"id":464,"date":"2014-11-26T01:30:45","date_gmt":"2014-11-26T01:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/?p=464"},"modified":"2015-02-12T20:38:10","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T20:38:10","slug":"opm-continues-to-have-nothing-new-to-say-about-anti-trans-discrimination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/?p=464","title":{"rendered":"OPM Continues to Have Nothing New to Say about Anti-Trans Discrimination"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.opm.gov\/healthcare-insurance\/healthcare\/carriers\/2014\/2014-17.pdf\">Since June 13, 2014, it has been the explicit policy of the U.S. government to discriminate on the basis of gender identity with respect to health insurance<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I have attempted since that date\u00a0to get the Administration to rectify this discrimination.\u00a0 It has failed to do so.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eztX4Ovu618\">In a November 24 discussion of Federal benefits<\/a>, the Office of Personnel Management chose to address the question squarely:<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/emily_esque\/status\/536863422621962240<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the offending language:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/OPM-CL-2014-17-Excerpt.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-473\" src=\"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/OPM-CL-2014-17-Excerpt.png\" alt=\"OPM CL 2014-17 Excerpt\" width=\"896\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/OPM-CL-2014-17-Excerpt.png 896w, http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/OPM-CL-2014-17-Excerpt-300x117.png 300w, http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/OPM-CL-2014-17-Excerpt-624x243.png 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 896px) 100vw, 896px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p9VffA8kMxw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>You might notice that the woman called on to respond is reading the June 13 letter that was referenced in my question, which she clearly had at the ready to read, <strong>verbatim<\/strong>,\u00a0as an answer to the question. \u00a0This is what OPM considers &#8220;responsiveness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The gentleman hosting that call was Alan P. Spielman, Assistant Director for Federal Employee Insurance Operations in OPM\u2019s Healthcare and Insurance Program Division. \u00a0Sometime that same day, November 24, 2014, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/FY-2015-00122-Emily-T-Prince-Transgender-Final-11-24-14_Redacted.pdf\">Mr. Spielman signed the response to my FOIA request of July 29, 2014<\/a>. \u00a0Again, this is what OPM considers &#8220;responsiveness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In that FOIA response, OPM provides a complete list of plans that do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity. \u00a0There are 304 FEHB plans.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Screen-Shot-2014-11-25-at-7.43.46-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-468\" src=\"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Screen-Shot-2014-11-25-at-7.43.46-PM.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-11-25 at 7.43.46 PM\" width=\"929\" height=\"858\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Screen-Shot-2014-11-25-at-7.43.46-PM.png 929w, http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Screen-Shot-2014-11-25-at-7.43.46-PM-300x277.png 300w, http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Screen-Shot-2014-11-25-at-7.43.46-PM-624x576.png 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 929px) 100vw, 929px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s 15. \u00a015 plans out of 304, or less than 5%, do NOT discriminate on the basis of Gender Identity.<\/p>\n<p>Under current OPM policy, the other 289 health insurance carriers may continue to exclude care solely because it is a \u201cservice, drug, or supply related to sex transformations.\u201d\u00a0 That means that even if a service is covered, if it is related to a \u201csex transformation\u201d (i.e. transition, described using the most offensive language possible), a carrier may exclude it.\u00a0 Under FEHB regulations, OPM accepts legal responsibility for each of these health insurance plans.<\/p>\n<p>Under Macy v. Holder, such discrimination is illegal.\u00a0 Under Title VII, such discrimination is illegal.\u00a0 Under the President\u2019s Executive Order of July 21, 2014 (EO 13,672) such discrimination is illegal.<\/p>\n<p>The Office of Personnel Management clearly does not care.<\/p>\n<p><em>Thanks to Am\u00e9lie E. Koran for compiling information on the total number of plans and their general lack of trans-inclusiveness.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since June 13, 2014, it has been the explicit policy of the U.S. government to discriminate on the basis of gender identity with respect to health insurance. I have attempted since that date\u00a0to get the Administration to rectify this discrimination.\u00a0 It has failed to do so. In a November 24 discussion of Federal benefits, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,9,92],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis","category-foia","category-health","tag-opm"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5pI5m-7u","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":474,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions\/474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}