New Texas law requires insurers to cover detransition costs

Texas is set to require health insurance companies to cover medical costs associated with gender detransitioning, including reversal procedures and complications from earlier gender-transition surgeries.

Effective Sept. 1, the new law mandates that insurers offering coverage for gender-transition procedures must also pay for related reversals and long-term care, Texas Scorecard reports. That includes annual physical and mental health screenings and treatment for complications.

The law, authored by Republican state Sen. Bryan Hughes, applies to most private and government health plans and covers all Texas residents, regardless of where their insurer is based.

Brady Gray, president of the Texas Family Project, praised the legislation, calling it “a righteous course correction in a culture that has lost its way.”

“As Christians, we believe every person is made in the image of God, male and female, and that truth cannot be rewritten by ideology or emotional manipulation,” Gray told Texas Scorecard. “This law ensures that those who were misled and harmed by the false promises of gender ideology will no longer be abandoned in their pain.” 

Under the law, coverage must be provided even if the individual was not enrolled in the plan at the time they underwent gender-transition procedures. 

The law builds on a 2023 rule that banned so called “gender-affirming” care for minors and required Medicaid and private insurers to cover treatments for detransitioners of all ages when deemed medically necessary. 

No other states currently require coverage for detransition treatments, although multiple states have banned sex change surgeries and treatments for minors.  

The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld a Tennessee law banning the procedures for minors, an encouraging sign for the 24 other states such as Arkansas, Idaho and Montana, which also ban it for minors.