a hospital's fertility plan gave straight couples a free way in and lesbians a bill. a judge says that's fine, because men get nothing either. thrilled for us.

via the court's opinion and HR Dive

The judge put it more plainly than any of us could. "As a lesbian, Kulwicki cannot have procreative sex," the opinion reads. "She may only prove infertility by paying for treatments."

That was the whole complaint. Tara Kulwicki works for Cobb Hospital and Wellstar Health System in Georgia and wants to have a child. Their medical plan covers female infertility, but to qualify, a woman has to establish she is infertile, either by having procreative sex for a stretch without conceiving or by paying for other treatments that fail. Straight couples get a free route in. She does not. She sued under Title VII in 2024, on behalf of herself and a class of plan members.

A magistrate judge agreed with her. On Sept. 25, U.S. District Judge Michael L. Brown did not. He rejected that recommendation, dismissed her claims, and dismissed the class claims without prejudice.

what the ruling says

His reasoning runs through Bostock, the 2020 Supreme Court case that said firing someone for being gay is sex discrimination. "Though everyone agrees Bostock controls, no one agrees what it means or requires," he wrote. His answer: flip only her sex, not her orientation, and see whether a man would be treated better. A man would not, he concluded, because the plan does not cover male infertility at all. He also leaned on the 11th Circuit's 2025 ruling against a trans employee's insurance claim in Lange v. Houston County, HR Dive notes.

So the plan is not unfair to lesbians, legally speaking, because it is equally useless to men. Very reassuring for everyone.