Portland Mayor Sam Adams on Tuesday
announced he would submit a proposal to include transgender health
benefits for city employees. The new benefits would include sexual
reassignment surgery.
“As mayor, it is important to me that
we attract and retain the best and brightest employees to the city of
Portland,” Adams
told the Portland
Tribute. “Offering non-discriminatory health care benefits
– as leading employers like Nike, Google, Microsoft and IBM do –
is one way to accomplish that goal.”
“Covering basic, medically necessary
care is a matter of fairness, and it's the right thing to do,” he
added.
Adams is expected to submit his
proposal to City Council next week. The estimated cost of the
benefit annually is $32,302, or a .08% increase in the city's health
care budget.
The openly gay Adams survived a
threatened recall in 2009 when opponents failed to turn in sufficient
valid signatures needed to force a recall. The attempt was prompted
by Adams' admission that his long-standing denial of having a sexual
relationship with a young man, Beau Breedlove, was not true.