The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County is one of the largest local governments in Tennessee. Like many of its peer cities around the country, Metro Nashville has made steady public policy gains for LGBTQ people since 2007, but the city's Benefit Board has failed to offer comprehensive gender-affirming health care benefits.

From Tennessee Equality Project's perspective, this injustice must be addressed. We do not need convincing that transgender people deserve full health care benefits. But we do need to understand why it has been so difficult to achieve the goal.  We also need to know what paths are available to provide these vital resources to Metro Nashville government employees.

To that end, we engaged Heather Meshell of Capitol Hill Advocacy to prepare a report that gives us a map of recent efforts to adopt comprehensive gender-affirming care for Metro Nashville employees, the structural and legal issues, and some options to consider over the coming months.  You can find the report here. 

If you would like to be engaged in efforts to advocate for comprehensive gender-affirming care for Metro Nashville Government employees, be in touch at [email protected] .