The popular online job-searching website Indeed is offering its American employees and their immediate family members $10,000 for relocation expenses if they want to leave a state that has imposed restrictions on transgender medical services, such as rules that prohibit sex change surgeries for children according to a report from Axios.
This also applies to states that prohibit other policies that the company believes restrict support for children who identify as transgender or nonbinary.
The policy went into effect in July of 2023, but was first reported by Axios on Aug. 30. CNA could not reach Indeed for comment.
"Our transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming colleagues are integral to our business and culture at Indeed," Misty Gaither, vice president of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging at Indeed, told Axios.
“We know employees thrive and do their best work when they can bring their authentic selves to work,” Gaither said. "We also believe that everyone has the right to make the healthcare decisions that they feel are right for themselves and their families.”
More than 20 states have imposed new laws that prevent doctors from providing puberty-blocking drugs or transgender surgeries for minors over the past few years. The laws follow moves in some European countries to put the brakes on these services for minors.
The laws vary by state, but many prohibit surgeries that remove a child’s genitals or reconstruct his or her genitals to resemble the genitals of the opposite sex. These surgeries generally sterilize the child.
In many states, other cosmetic surgeries are prohibited for minors if they remove a healthy part of the body and are meant to facilitate a gender transition. In several of these states, the law also prohibits doctors from prescribing drugs that halt or delay the normal development of puberty and hormone treatments that provide the child with more estrogen or testosterone than what would be normal in a healthy child of that age and sex.
Jay Richards, the director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at the Heritage Foundation, criticized Indeed’s decision to provide these benefits to workers.
“Plenty of American corporations think that the benefits of woke policies exceed the costs, and this policy by Indeed is surely an example of this,” Richards told CNA.
“In mid-2023, the company thinks the publicity from this stunt is worth the nominal cost,” Richards said. “After all, how many employees really want to move to a state where their child can have their development frozen in place, and their fertility compromised?”
Richards added that he believes “when these procedures are exposed for the atrocity they are, Indeed will drop the policy.”
“No doubt, they will hope customers don’t remember that the company spent money to make sure kids had access to sterilizing drugs and surgery,” Richards continued. “We should remember it.”
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that patients between the ages of 12 and 18 made up nearly 8% of transgender surgeries between 2016 and 2020. It is estimated that this age range accounted for about 3,678 total surgeries.
The study found that in the younger patients, about 87% received chest surgeries, such as removing healthy breasts in girls or putting prosthetic breasts in boys. About 11% of patients in the age range of 12-18 received genital surgeries, which amounts to about 405 people.
