1792 Insights
The 1792 Exchange is committed to delivering sharp, data-driven analysis of corporate America’s political entanglements. Discover what investors, executives, and concerned citizens should know regarding why businesses should return to neutral, mission-focused operations.
The DOJ Is Suing Over Secret “Gender Transitions” in Schools. The HRCF and Its Corporate Backers Helped Pave the Way
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF) has spent years pushing gender ideology into our nation’s K-12 schools through its Welcoming Schools initiative. Marketed under the guise of “bullying prevention,” this HRCF flagship program supplies LGBTQ+ resources and trainings to educators and school boards. According to the HRCF’s 2026 Annual Report, more than 30,000 educators participated in Welcoming Schools training last year. Given the program’s unparalleled reach, it should come as little surprise that HRCF’s influence can be seen in the policies now at the center of the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools (KCKPS). On September 1, 2026, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas sued KCKPS “to stop the district from facilitating secret ‘gender transition’ for children at school without their parents’ knowledge or consent.” The department’s complaint points to KCKPS’s transgender guidelines, which chart a course for staff to help students “transition” without the parents’ involvement. The HRCF has historically supported such guidance. Its Welcoming Schools resources are riddled with suggestive language hinting at exceptions to informing parents about their child’s sexuality. The organization uses a student’s “right to privacy” as justification. As evidence of this stance, the HRC has condemned school districts on the basis of “student privacy,” including the Carson City School District, which recently enacted new policies requiring school faculty to inform parents …
Companies Reviewing GLP-1 Coverage Should Also Review Transgender Healthcare Coverage
According to reports earlier this month, Starbucks is ending GLP-1 coverage for its employees. Under its new healthcare plan, Starbucks will no longer cover prescription drugs used for weight loss, but it will continue to cover comprehensive transgender healthcare interventions, including reconstructive surgical procedures and puberty blockers, for covered dependents. Employers are pulling back on GLP-1 coverage largely for the same reason they are reconsidering other benefits: to adjust to rising healthcare costs. RxBenefits reports that GLP-1 drugs cost roughly $1,000–$1,500 per month, while SHRM estimates employers often shoulder 70–100% of prescription drug costs. With GLP-1s now accounting for around 20% of prescription drug spending and the number of users accelerating, employers face a limited set of choices: tighten eligibility requirements, shift more of the cost to employees or customers, or eliminate coverage altogether. If companies can reasonably reconsider GLP-1 coverage because of cost, uncertain return on investment, and broader questions over what an employer-sponsored health plan should cover, why should other expensive medical benefits, such as transgender medical interventions, be exempt from similar scrutiny? According to February 2026 data from the Human Rights Campaign, more than 550 major companies, including Starbucks, offer comprehensive transgender healthcare benefits to employees and covered dependents. While …
Gender Surgery for Minors Faces a Legal Reckoning
Last year, a federal court in Washington State ruled that Premera Blue Cross unlawfully discriminated when it refused to cover elective double mastectomies for two young girls. The decision read like a harsh warning to every employer: exclude gender-transition procedures for children from your health plan and risk an Affordable Care Act discrimination claim. But the story doesn’t end there. In July 2026, the United States filed a brief urging the Ninth Circuit to reject that court’s misguided reasoning. In a 39-page brief supporting Premera’s appeal, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division argues that declining to fund these elective sex-denying surgeries for minors is not sex discrimination. “Far from being discrimination on the basis of sex,” the brief states, “this sensible policy is rooted in biological reality, developmental psychology, and medical diagnosis.” The brief anchors its argument in the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in United States v. Skrmetti, arguing that “regulating medical procedures on the basis of diagnosis does not automatically amount to discrimination on the basis of sex.” Premera covers a mastectomy for a teenage boy with gynecomastia and for a girl with breast cancer but declines to cover the same surgery when it is performed on healthy adolescents—boys and girls alike. The distinction, the brief argues, is …
HRC Launches Educators for Equality Pledge
As a new school year rolls around, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) launched a new pledge focused on recruiting educators to commit to “ensure every student feels safe, valued, and affirmed.” This Educators for Equality pledge, among other things, asks signatories to: This initiative fits squarely within HRC’s existing work in schools via its Welcoming Schools program, an “anti-bullying” curriculum that functions as a subversive way to discuss LGBTQ+ topics in the classroom. If that accusation feels like an assertion, consider the fact that the “key resources” HRC highlighted in the pledge sign-up are “pioneering LGBTQ+ and gender-inclusive professional development training, lesson plans, booklists and school advocacy resources specifically designed for educators and youth-serving professionals.” For example, an “Educator for Equality” might use the Welcoming Schools curriculum to teach 3rd graders about the “Gendersnow Person” as a way to “explore the concepts of gender identity and gender expression” and that there are “many ways to be a girl, boy, both or neither.” Even a cursory journey through the Welcoming Schools website will clarify HRC’s obsession with getting our schools to focus on modern gender ideology rather than academic excellence. Its School Board Guide is for parents, teachers, and “concerned community member[s]” to learn how to effectively advocate for LGBTQ+ policies, “organize and build power” in their local communities, and hold their school board members “to a higher standard.” Its Self-Care guide provides LGBTQ+ youth with resources to find community support, including TrevorSpace, an online chatroom that allows adults to communicate with minors about LGBTQ+ topics. Adults in …
Schwab and Walmart get it right on not covering “gender transitions” for minors
Consider the millions of working parents who show up every day at their jobs, work hard to support their families and pay into their company’s healthcare plans. They trust that their premiums will fund genuine medical care, not repeat one of medicine’s darkest mistakes. In our not-so-distant past, frontal lobotomies were performed to “treat” psychiatric conditions — despite limited evidence of effectiveness. The operations had devastating long-term effects and no proven medical benefit. It was not long before the world realized what a serious mistake was being committed and put a stop to this abusive “treatment.” Today’s unproven “gender-affirming” interventions on minors use surgery, hormones and puberty blockers to address a mental health condition with similarly irreversible consequences: permanent sterilization, the removal of healthy organs and lifelong physical and emotional damage. No responsible modern healthcare plan would cover frontal lobotomies, yet many quietly fund these experimental sex-denying procedures on children. Let us not repeat that shameful history on our gender-dysphoric youths. This is not healthcare. These are not medically necessary procedures. These are not minor adjustments or reversible treatments. They are costly, permanently damaging experiments on our children, who lack the maturity and legal capacity to count the cost of …
550+ Companies Covering Sex-Denying Procedures for Minor Dependents
According to February 2026 data from the Human Rights Campaign, 550+ companies provide health insurance coverage for transgender medical interventions, including puberty blockers, hormones, and surgical procedures, to covered minor dependents through their employee health plans. HRC reports this information after a corporate representative uses an online HRC portal to upload, or affirm a previously uploaded copy of, the company’s Summary Plan Description (SPD) or Summary of Material Modification (SMM) that explicitly shows coverage for transition-related care. The representative must also upload a copy of the company’s applicable clinical guidelines (medical policy). These companies range from major financial institutions and law firms to retailers, insurers, and tech giants. Shareholders, customers, parents, and employees deserve to know where their companies stand. 1792 Exchange calls on every company on this list to adopt clear protections for minor dependents in their healthcare plans and get back to business. A&O Shearman Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation Billtrust Box Inc. Griffith Foods Group Hanover Insurance Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey HSBC Holdings Linklaters Mayer Brown MERGE Moderna Neuberger Berman Group NTT DATA Services NTT Global Data Centers Americas PGA TOUR Publicis Health Publicis Media Sony Interactive Entertainment Sony Music Sony Pictures Steptoe Sutherland Global …