A leading Bay State advocate for gay, bisexual and transgender people sidestepped questions about why the organization has publicly supported a convicted wife killer but not a Cambridge transgender woman in two separate legal bids for taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery.

“I’m not going to respond to individual cases,” said Jennifer Levi, director of Transgender Rights Project at the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders. Levi said the group is working on other cases pushing Medicare and MassHealth to cover the same operation.

Anita T. Phoenix told the Herald she “lost total respect for GLAD” after the organization filed a brief earlier this month supporting Michelle Kosilek in the state’s federal appeal of a ruling to require Massachusetts to pay for gender reassignment surgery for the transgender prisoner and convicted murderer.

Phoenix said GLAD turned down her request for help in her own federal lawsuit against Medicare and MassHealth for refusing to cover gender reassignment surgery.

Levi said, “There are a number of insurance plans both private and public that exclude medical care relating to gender transition. We’re very committed to challenging those exclusions. GLAD believes that those exclusions are unprincipled, discriminatory and defy everything we know about the medical research related to gender dysphoria.”