Arizona to Cover Gender-Transition Surgery for State Employees under Governor’s New Executive Order

Arizona governor Katie Hobbs issued executive orders on Tuesday to guarantee transgender state employees access to gender-transition surgery and to prohibit the use of state funding to support or promote so-called “conversion therapy.”

Hobbs’s order on gender-transition surgery changes existing policy that prohibited the state’s health plan from covering the surgeries.

The new policy comes after University of Arizona professor Russell Toomey, a biological woman who identifies as a man, sued the state after being denied coverage for a hysterectomy. The lawsuit is still working its way through the courts but has cost Arizona more than $1 million in legal fees. In response to the new order, ACLU attorneys representing Toomey said they will file a motion to settle the case. 

“Today’s executive order by Governor Hobbs provides unexplainable relief and care to the state-sanctioned suffering that I and other transgender Arizonans have endured for several years,” Toomey said in a statement. “I see this action as hope that our collective future in Arizona is one that allows trans people, like myself, to live lives full of joy and unrestricted opportunity.”

One of Hobbs’s orders also prevents state agencies from cooperating with civil and criminal cases in states where gender-transition treatment is illegal.

The order on conversion therapy also instructs state agencies to develop policies to protect Arizona youth from the practice, which aims to “convert” LGBT people to heterosexuality.

“Our LGBTQ+ community should never have to face hate and discrimination, and I will do everything in my power to fight for full equality,” Hobbs said in a statement. “The state is leading by example on this issue, and we will continue working until Arizona is a place where every individual can participate equally in our economy and our workforce without fear of discrimination or exclusion.” 

LGBT activists have expanded the definition of “conversion therapy” in recent years to refer to some widely accepted forms of therapy in which mental-health specialists don’t immediately affirm the individual’s trans identity.

Cathi Herrod, the president of the Center for Arizona Policy, said the center is weighing its options to challenge the law in court.

“Governor Katie Hobbs should have run for the Arizona Legislature again if she wanted to make law,” Herrod said in a statement to the Arizona Mirror. “Arizona lawmakers who represent Arizonans from throughout the state are tasked with passing new laws, not the Governor.” 

The executive orders comes one week after Hobbs issued an executive order to prevent county attorneys across Arizona from attempting to prosecute abortionists for abortion law violations in the state. The order led Republicans in the state legislature to threaten to delay confirmation of her agency nominations. The lawmakers voiced concern that Hobbs’s orders will allow the appointees to defy state law.