Conversations Inspiring Action: Introduction of our new Transgender Benefits

At Intuit, maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks, we believe that everyone plays a part in making sure all people, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, feel like they belong. We stand by the LGBTQ community and are committed to building an inclusive and diverse workforce. But there’s more work to do and together, we will help drive meaningful change.

Last Spring, our Pride Employee Resource Group (ERG) hosted our first Intuit Transgender Summit, mentioned by Forbes to be the first of its kind for Silicon Valley.

The day was filled with education, storytelling, and panels that explored personal experiences from some of our transgender employees, their managers and more. All in spirit of coming together as a supportive community to move our company forward and influence the current perception of the transgender community in today’s society. 

As part of the Summit, our transgender employees had a breakout session with a handful of Intuit executives, where they shared their concerns, struggles and hopes for the future. The topics ranged from challenges with name changes, pronoun usage, and health care. 

A common concern expressed that finding coverage for life-affirming services is difficult and that insurance companies are often unable to answer questions for transgender employees. 

Our Intuit leaders left the meeting committing to supporting our transgender employees and with a higher level of empathy than before. “Speaking for myself, I felt that we were heard. That action was coming. We know movement takes time, but this was the first time in a while that it felt like it was going to happen”, Jessica Darke, Tucson Pride ERG co-chair shared. Members of Intuit’s new TransAdvisory Board then met with HR leaders to discuss health care coverage over the next several weeks. What resulted was rolled out as part of Intuit’s annual enrollment benefits– a huge win for the LGBTQ community during Pride month. 

We’re proud to share that we’ve aligned our transgender benefits with the World Professional Association for Transgender health (WPATH) standards of care. Our US nationwide medical plans will now provide coverage for the following procedures:

• Blepharoplasty
• Rhinoplasty
• Voice therapy/voice lessons
• Breast augmentation
• Electrolysis
• Facelift
• Facial bone reduction
• Insertion of testicular prosthesis
• Pectoral implants
• Lipoplasty/lipofilling/liposuction
• Thyroid reduction chondroplasty
• Voice modification surgery

We’ve also made enhancements to our US family planning services such as adoption and surrogacy assistance that help make the process of growing your family easier and more cost-effective. According to a survey by the Family Equality Council, 63% of LGBTQ+ millennials are considering children and need access to fertility coverage to build their family. We’re thrilled to support family expansion for all employees, inclusive of the LGTBQ+ community.

After hearing about the changes, one employee shared, “These are a direct result of our executives sitting down with us and listening…truly listening. And in the wake of COVID and all else that is happening, they didn’t back down. They pushed forward and made sure this got added this year. ” 

We believe that innovation thrives when employees are truly supported so that they can bring their unique experiences, background and ideas to work. Not only are we committed to strengthening the diversity of our workforce, but we’re continuing to build a culture of belonging and inclusion. Whether it’s the support of our many Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), employee-wide inclusion training, or community building activities open to all employees, we want to get closer to the challenges facing our employees so that we can work to create policies and procedures that make all of employees feel like they belong.

While we want to create meaningful change within our organization, we also hope to inspire others to join us and pave the way for a better future.