HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — LGBTQ people on the Connecticut State and Partnership Medical Benefit Plan will now have the same coverage for fertility treatments as heterosexual and cisgender plan members.

“The policy is very clear — that no matter who you love or who you are, if you want to have a child, you can have a child through the fertility care options that we have under the state employee health plan,” said Sean Scanlon, the state comptroller.

There are more than 250,000 people on the plan, including current employees, retirees and their families.

Scanlon said that the change came after a state employee, Julia Famularo, alerted him on Sept. 21 that LGBTQ members faced barriers to coverage.

“For LGBTQ+ state employees, the health plan previously created a significant barrier, financially and emotionally, to creating a family,” Famularo said in a written announcement. My wife and I worked together to review the policy, identify the concerns, and send them in a memo to Comptroller Scanlon, who was able to work on finding a solution.”

The change, she said, makes it so that she and her wife can start their family “without unfair and costly barriers.”

The modification is for plan members who are “unable to achieve a pregnancy as an individual or with a partner because the individual or couple does not have the necessary gametes to achieve a pregnancy.”

The move has been applauded by Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, and Equality CT.