Fort Worth – a city famous for longhorns, stockyards and git-along politics – has saddled up an issue that promises to buck feverishly over the next month.

Should taxpayer-funded health insurance pay for city employees' sex-change operations?

The proposal was one of 20 recommendations presented by a city-sponsored diversity task force formed more than three months ago after local and state police improperly raided a downtown gay bar.

Three Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission agents were fired and two others disciplined for violating internal policy and using excessive force in the raid.

Fort Worth police are expected to release the results of their internal investigation today.

City officials greeted the diversity task force proposals warmly during Tuesday's presentation.

Stephanie Klick, chairwoman of the Tarrant County Republican Party, said Wednesday that the sex-change policy is evidence of liberal politics run amok.

"I am unaware of any other city in the country considering something like this," she said. "I'd like to know how paying for sex-change operations is going to fix what happened at the Rainbow Lounge."

Klick said the operations should be considered like every other elective or cosmetic procedure.

"Insurance plans won't pay for tummy tucks and breast augmentations unless they are medically necessary, and they shouldn't pay for this either," she said.

Thomas Anable, an accountant for the Rainbow Lounge who worked as a city liaison to the gay community after the raid, said he's not surprised by the reaction. Gender disorders, he said, are often greeted with hysteria and homophobia.

"We're talking about sex change in terms of a disability," he said. "There are people who are born with female organs and male organs, and you have to decide how you live with the medical abnormality."

The proposed policy does not distinguish between physical deformities and issues involving gender identity. Both potentially would be eligible for treatment under the expanded health insurance plan.

Anable said patients go through years of hormone therapy and counseling before they are approved for surgery.

"We're not talking about people who want to do this on a whim," he said. "It's a long, long process."

Anable said the task force's recommendation was courageous.

Klick said it lacked common sense.

"The city has actually had to cut back programs and spending because we're in some pretty rough financial times," she said. "And we're talking about adding benefits like this?"

The task force also recommended that city officials extend domestic partner benefits, use nondiscriminatory language on job postings, increase training for public employees and sponsor public events to promote the city's anti-discrimination ordinance.

City Manager Dale Fisseler concurred with the recommendations of the task force. Two of the issues – extending health benefits to domestic partners and paying for sex-change operations – are being studied for legal and financial feasibility.

Fernando Costa, an assistant city manager who moderated the task force, said the panel did not spend much time talking about political correctness.

He said at least one other city in the country, San Francisco, pays for treatment of gender identification disorder, which can lead to sex-change surgery.

"The task force generally did not assign as much priority to perceptions in the community as they did to their sense of what is right and wrong and what would be fair for the city to do," he said.

"We pride ourselves in being an inclusive community."