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Excerpt from www.motherjones.com
The city of New York is discriminating against its gay male employees by denying them the same health care benefits as women and straight men, a new lawsuit alleges. Under the city’s insurance, employees are entitled to coverage for up to three rounds of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in their quest to have children—that is, unless they are gay men.
In a class action lawsuit filed Thursday, which appears to be the first federal case specifically about gay men’s access to IVF, a former city employee and his spouse claim that by denying them benefits available to all other employees, the city is engaging in discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation. Nothing else, they argue, explains why they were treated differently.
“There is no legitimate, non-discriminatory explanation for why the City’s healthcare plan would offer IVF benefits when the male plan participant’s partner is female but withhold IVF benefits when the male plan participant’s partner is male,” the complaint, filed in federal court in New York, states.