The city of Springfield is again accused of discriminating against LGBTQ employees. Former city library employee Kate Holt, a transgender woman, claims the city violated state law by refusing to cover her medical expenses related to gender transition. Transgender people have a variety of ways to go about transitioning. Some, like Holt, regularly take hormonal treatments via shots or pills. Holt started a job at the city library in February 2020. My prescriptions were excluded from insurance, said Holt in a post on the website for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. They were excluded not because they were exotic or unreasonably expensive. My medications are common and covered for other medical conditions. I had already taken them under a physician s care for more than two years without any problem. And the medications are covered for transgender people by other insurance plans, including our statewide Medicaid system.
The staff at Lincoln’s Logan Correctional Center felt down last week when they learned Gov. JB Pritzker was imposing a state government hiring freeze and looking into potential furloughs of state workers and other “personnel cost adjustments.”
“The reaction is there is underappreciation for what our staff is subjected to,” said Shaun Dawson, a correctional sergeant at the women’s prison and president of the prison’s 700-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2073.
The governor said in a news conference Dec. 15 that he would institute $711 million in cuts to the current fiscal 2021 budget, including a potential $75 million in worker furloughs and other personnel cost adjustments that would need to be negotiated with unions.