A Georgia county refused to change a health plan to cover a trans employee's surgeries, citing the cost.
The bill would have been about $10k a year for transition-related care for employees, per ProPublica.
The county spent nearly $1.2 million in legal fees fighting it in court, and lost.
Local Georgia officials refused to change a department's health insurance plan to cover the gender-affirming surgery of a trans employee, citing cost as a reason.
But Georgia's Houston County ended up paying a private law firm nearly $1.2 million to fight the employee in federal court, far more than the estimated $10,000 a year it would have cost to add transition-related care to the health plan, ProPublica reported.
And this month a federal judge ordered it to cover transition care for its employees.
"It was a slap in the face, really, to find out how much they had spent," Anna Lange, the sheriff's deputy who filed a federal discrimination lawsuit, said.