President Donald Trump, through his Dept. of Health and Human Services, is once again targeting transgender people, this time by proposing a new rule that would rescind Obama-era healthcare protections.
The proposed rule would let doctors and other medical professionals, and health care organizations discriminate against transgender people by allowing them to deny care to someone on the basis of gender identity.
“Predicated on little more than prejudice, this proposal will abandon 2 million Americans who already face significant barriers to accessing adequate and life-saving health care,” Mara Keisling, Executive Director for the National Center for Transgender Equality, said in a statement. “This is not about free health care or special treatment. It’s about the right of every American to be treated with dignity when they walk into an emergency room, meet a new doctor, or find the right insurance plan. If permitted, this rule will promote ignorance and hate that no American should have to face while seeking care, and we are ready to fight it with everything we’ve got.”
The Dept. of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights, headed by Roger Severino, will be in charge of the new rule, including determining if it will go into effect. The Human Rights Campaign has called Severino a “radical anti-LGBTQ activist.”
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