Iowa State University has agreed to settle a discrimination lawsuit brought by a transgender employee for $28,000 after she was denied coverage for transition-related care under her employee health insurance plan.
Elyn Fritz-Waters, a former assistant scientist at the university, was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2016, and, on the advice of her primary care provider, was advised to undergo gender confirmation surgery to help treat her dysphoria.
Yet even though the care was deemed medically necessary, Fritz-Waters was still denied coverage due to an insurance exclusion that specifically prohibits coverage for transition-related care.
Fritz-Waters filed a complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, alleging that the insurance exclusion was discriminatory because it denied her equal access to health care benefits based on her sex and gender identity. She later resigned from her post at the university in February 2017.
The Civil Rights Commission agreed with Fritz-Waters’ claims, and granted her “right-to-sue” status later that year, at which point she filed a lawsuit against the university.
Last Wednesday, the Iowa Appeal Board approved a $27,500 settlement in the case. The university will pay $25,000, and the state government will pick up the remainder of the tab. The state of Iowa did not admit wrongdoing or legal violation as part of the settlement.
After Fritz-Waters filed suit, the Iowa Board of Regents decided to expand insurance coverage to include transition-related care for transgender individuals, Annette Hacker, a university spokeswoman, told the Des Moines Register.
Fights over transgender health care have taken center-stage in recent years. In 2016, an Iowa transgender man was allowed to receive gender confirmation surgery under Medicaid due to a processing error, even though the state continued to refuse to allow other Medicaid recipients to receive coverage for transition-related procedures. Earlier this year, an Iowa jury awarded a transgender man $120,000 for discrimination he faced on the job — including the denial of insurance coverage — due to his gender identity.
In 2017, two transgender women sued the state, arguing that the Medicaid exclusion was discriminatory and unconstitutional. A federal judge ruled in favor of the two women, finding that transition-related procedures deemed medically necessary can be covered by Medicaid. Last week, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law containing a provision that allows local governments and agencies to refuse to use public dollars to pay for surgery, hormones, or other treatments.
Lio Cundiff was sitting on a bench near Chicago's Belmont Harbor on February 18, talking on the phone with his aunt, when he looked up to see a woman screaming and chasing a baby stroller rolling toward the water after being carried off by the wind.
The National Weather Service had warned of sustained winds of 20 to 30 miles per hour, with gusts reaching 50. The force of the wind sent the stroller -- carrying an 8-month-old girl -- into the lake.
While the baby’s mother stood in shock, Cundiff, a 31-year-old Chicago transgender man and server at the local restaurant Oak and Honey, jumped into the lake and swam to the stroller, despite not knowing how to swim. He fought to keep the infant from slipping beneath the surface.
Nepal has elected its first-ever transgender woman to parliament, with the election commission confirming last week that 37-year-old LGBTQ rights advocate Bhumika Shrestha will serve as a lawmaker from the centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party, which secured 182 of 275 seats earlier this month.
In Nepal, voters cast two ballots in parliamentary elections: one elects 165 members from single-member constituencies using first-past-the-post voting, while the other fills 110 seats from party lists distributed proportionally based on the overall vote.
About 9% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something other than heterosexual, according to new polling from Gallup.
That figure is unchanged from 2024 -- but remains higher than the 7% who identified as LGBTQ between 2021 and 2023. The findings are based on combined data from more than 13,000 telephone interviews conducted nationwide in 2025.
Overall, 86% of adults identified as heterosexual, 9% as LGBTQ, and 5% declined to answer questions about sexual orientation or gender identity.
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