How New Medicaid Rule Will Help The Transgender Community

NPR Illinois | 91.9 UIS | By Maureen Foertsch McKinney

Published April 25, 2019 at 4:04 PM CDT

Milo Vieland is a navigator for transgender and gender noncomforming people working their way through the surgery process.

Milo Vieland is a caseworker for transgender and gender nonconforming people at the Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago. Through a program that started last year, he helps transgender folks navigate through medical aspects of the transition process such as dealing with insurance. The transgender man says many of his clients will benefit from a new policy the state recently announced to start paying for gender reasignment surgeries through Medicaid. Maureen McKinney spoke with Vieland this week.

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Equity & Justice transgender

Maureen Foertsch McKinney

Maureen Foertsch McKinney is news editor and equity and justice beat reporter for NPR Illinois, where she has been on the staff since 2014 after Illinois Issues magazine’s merger with the station. She joined the magazine’s staff in 1998 as projects editor and became managing editor in 2003. Prior to coming to the University of Illinois Springfield, she was an education reporter and copy editor at three local newspapers, including the suburban Chicago Daily Herald, She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Eastern Illinois University and a master’s degree in English from UIS.

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