Overview of Historical Timeline

September 2019:

Exchange started exploring including a third gender option - Gender X - on Washington Healthplanfinder to align with Department of Health and Department of Licensing including a third option on identity documents, and in response to feedback received from customers and assisters that Healthplanfinder needed to be more accessible to individuals who are intersex and/or gender diverse.

October 2019:

Exchange began exploring design options for including Gender X as a third option and solicited initial feedback from impacted community members.

November - December 2019:

Based on initial feedback that the design needed to be more culturally sensitive, Exchange developed a more robust external stakeholder engagement process.

January 2020:

Exchange met with Gender Justice League and Ingersoll Gender Center in Seattle in early January 2020 to provide an overview of the Exchange and Healthplanfinder, explain current state, and solicit feedback on the Exchange's proposed changes to Washington Healthplanfinder.

February 2020:

Exchange created an updated design based on the feedback from GJL and Ingersoll Gender Center, and then actively worked to include impacted community members in the usability testing. The feedback from both impacted community members and general consumer testers indicated the proposed changes had the following impact:

Increased accessibility of Washington Healthplanfinder for intersex and gender-diverse individuals by asking for sensitive information in a sensitive manner
Did not negatively impact the use of Washington Healthplanfinder by individuals outside of the intersex and gender-diverse communities

May 2020:

Changes were implemented in the Washington Healthplanfinder application. The changes created in collaboration with Gender Justice League and Ingersoll Gender Center, are as follows:

Edit the on-screen text for the mandatory question to read: "Sex assigned at birth"
Add field level help that explains why the question is being asked: "This information is needed to ensure you are screened for all available benefits. For example, if you select female you will be screened for pregnancy benefits."

For the time being, the only possible answers will remain Male or Female. A shared long-term goal of the Exchange and our partner agencies who rely on this information to make sure the correct coverage is provided, is to make these answer choices more inclusive.