The county urged the full appellate circuit to look to the dissenting opinion of U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Brasher, who wrote in May, “On the face of this policy, it doesn’t treat anyone differently based on sex, gender nonconformity, or transgender status.”
The county’s petition for review comes a few weeks after an Eleventh Circuit panel ruled in favor of Lange, a longtime deputy who transitioned her gender while working for the sheriff’s office. After initially filing suit in 2019, Lange was largely successful on her discrimination claims, with a jury awarding her $60,000 in emotional damages in 2022.
The county, meanwhile, appealed U.S. District Judge Marc Treadwell’s granting of an injunction blocking the provision that denies coverage for gender-affirming surgery. Before the Eleventh Circuit, attorneys for the county argued that the policy applies to the procedure, not the person.
“You’ve got transgender people on each side of this line, and the line is drawn at whether you want surgery or not, not whether you’re transgender or not,” Elarbee Thompson Sapp & Wilson LLP’s Patrick Lail argued at oral arguments last November.
