Yahoo Sports The Trump Administration Reversed Civil Rights Protections For Transgender People During Pride Month
On the anniversary of the Pulse nightclub mass shooting, and in the middle of both LGBT Pride Month and a global pandemic, the Trump administration finalized the reversal of a health care civil rights measure aimed at protecting transgender patients. The Obama-era Department of Health and Human Services rule had expanded existing sex-based protections to include people who "may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female."
A 2010 survey found that medical discrimination has prevented transgender and gender-nonconforming people from receiving the health care they need. Nearly one in five respondents reported that they had been denied care based on their gender identity, while more than a quarter said they'd postponed seeking health care due to discrimination. Under the HHS rule finalized Friday, federal sex-based discrimination protections will be narrowed to "the plain meaning of the word 'sex' as male or female and as determined by biology."
Kaiser Family Foundation HIV policy associate director Lindsey Dawson told NPR that the rule could result in transgender people being turned away from doctors' offices or being denied lifesaving treatments or insurance coverage for their care. LGBT civil rights organization Lambda Legal legal has pledged to fight the rule in court.
In its summary of the new rule, the administration compared gender identity to partisan loyalties. "In the unlikely event that a healthcare provider were to deny services to someone based solely on his or her political affiliation, the Department would not be able to address such denial of care under Section 1557," reads the HHS summary. "Unlike other bases of discrimination, the categories of gender identity and sexual orientation (as well as political affiliation) are not set forth in those statutes."
This move to eliminate healthcare protections is the latest in a series of Trump-era policy efforts attacking transgender people's rights. The National Center for Transgender Equality has dubbed the Trump administration the "discrimination administration" for efforts that include attempts to ban transgender students from participating in school sports and to prevent openly transgender people from serving in the military. On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the Department of Housing and Urban Development is poised to propose a rule that could potentially find transgender people shut out of some homeless shelters.
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