The state of Georgia will start paying for gender-affirming health care for public employees covered by a state health insurance plan. Two state employees and a public school media clerk sued last year over the state's refusal to pay.

At midnight on June 30, transgender minors in Georgia who are not already receiving hormone treatments will be barred from starting due to a controversial law passed by the state legislature along party lines this March.

The bill cleared the GOP-controlled Legislature after a final vote in the Senate over the objections of Democrats. Texas is now poised to join at least 17 other states that have enacted similar bans.

Gender-affirming care for minors has been available in the U.S. for more than a decade and is endorsed by major medical associations, but it has come under attack in many conservative legislatures.

Two state employees and a public school media clerk are suing the state of Georgia. They say in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that the state employee health plan is illegally discriminating by refusing to pay for gender transition-related health care.

Activists are campaigning against clinics that offer care for transgender teenagers. Some families worry that will only fuel efforts to ban gender-affirming care in their state.