National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project (FEP)
Press Release
“Starbucks says it will pay for an employee, and presumably an employee’s covered family members, to transition from one gender to another. But Starbucks management will not pay for an employee or an employee’s covered family members to detransition,” FEP Executive Director Steve Milloy will tell shareholders at Wednesday’s meeting. “We are asking for a report from management on the consequences of this obvious and arbitrary discrimination.”
Proposal 6 requests that Starbucks’s board evaluate and issue a report on “financial risks associated with the company’s apparent exclusion of detransitioning in its health care coverage.”
In the proposal’s supporting statement, FEP notes that “the Supreme Court has clarified that employers cannot discriminate based on gender identity or expression when making employment decisions (including health care), without violating Title VII…. Refusal to provide detransition services could expose Starbucks to costly anti-discrimination lawsuits involving damages and sanctions from private plaintiffs and the government.”
If transitioning is health care and a medical benefit, why is detransitioning not one? What if you transitioned and later decide you want to transition back? What is the corporate attitude? Tough luck,” Milloy will tell shareholders. “Transitioning costs upwards of $60,000. That is quite a benefit for employees who can earn as little as $16,000 per year and qualify for the benefit.”
