A mother in Ada, Minn., just north of the Fargo-Moorhead area, is suing HealthPartners and Essentia Health for violating Title VII, the Minnesota Human Rights Act, and the Affordable Care Act when medically necessary health care was denied for her son. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota. Brittany Tovar works […]

The ACLU of Minnesota has filed a lawsuit on behalf of OutFront Minnesota and a plaintiff that challenges the state’s ban on transition-related health care services in public health insurance programs. Minnesota law specifically forbids the state’s Medicaid program from covering gender confirmation surgical care for transgender people. The state covered such procedures until 2005 […]

The commissioners of the Minnesota Department of Health and the Minnesota Department of Commerce issued a joint bulletin to health insurance providers on Monday. “The purpose of this Bulletin is to advise entities delivering or issuing individual and group health insurance policies in Minnesota that discrimination against an individual because of the individual’s gender identity […]

Teenwise, a group that advocates for evidence based sexual health programs for adolescents in Minnesota, released a report showing that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and questioning adolescents have higher rates of pregnancy than their peers. Numbers for transgender adolescents could not be analyzed because the state does not collect information pertaining to the transgender community. Formerly […]

The Minnesota Department of Health is urging gay men and other men who have sex with men to get vaccinated against a form of bacterial meningitis after the death of a man last week. According to a press release by MDH on Friday, a man in his 40s died in mid-July and was found to […]

Clergy, elected officials, and community health experts in the African American community are bringing together an event on Mar. 12 to draw attention to disparities in HIV. The event is called “Clergy/Elected Officials Sounding the Alarm: HIV Crisis in the African American Community” Those disparities were discussed last fall at a similar forum, “Fighting HIV […]

A bill being debated in the Minnesota Legislature would create a legislative commission to study the issue of surrogacy, and it’s being pushed forward by two anti-LGBT groups. Senate File 348 would establish a commission of legislators from both the House and Senate to study the issue of surrogacy — a woman carrying a pregnancy […]

A Valentine’s Day event at the Saloon will spotlight Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) as an HIV prevention tool. Hosted by organizations from the leather and kink communities, the educational talk and discussion aims to dispel stigmas about anti-HIV drugs as a prevention tool and help people learn about the facts, risks, and benefits of PrEP. According […]