A Georgia county is fighting a ruling requiring it to pay for a transgender deputy's surgery

A Georgia county asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to overturn a ruling that it illegally discriminated against a sheriff’s deputy by failing to pay for her gender-affirmation surgery.

But lawyers for Houston County Sgt. Anna Lange urged a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reject the appeal. They said during a hearing in Atlanta that the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that denying Lange insurance coverage for the procedure is illegal sex discrimination.

Lange, an investigator for the Houston County sheriff's office, sued Sheriff Cullen Talton and the county in 2019 after she was denied coverage.