LGBT+ Activists Concerned About Trump's New Healthcare Policy

While the U.S. passes 50,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration is moving forward to allowing doctors to refuse to treat trans patients.

Removing the Obama era trans protections banning discrimination “on the basis of sex” in healthcare, the new rule from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is in its final stages before being released.

LGBT+ equality advocates have said that the change would allow health care workers and hospitals to discriminate against trans people legally. “If the final rule is anything like the proposed rule, HHS is adopting changes that would be harmful in the best of times but that are especially cruel in the midst of a global pandemic that is disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities and exacerbating disparities,” Georgetown University professor Katie Keith said.

As ‘LGBTQ Nation’ reports, discrimination against trans people is rampant in health care. The Center for American Progress (CAP) found that 29% of transgender adults said that a health care professional refused to see them because of their gender identity. Amid the coronary’s pandemic, discrimination could be deadly.

“I’m really scared about what that means for testing, for treatment, for people’s comfort-seeking care,” said Sharita Gruberg, who works on LGBTQ issues for CAP. “This is not the time we want people to avoid seeking care and treatment.”

An HHS spokesperson said, “We do not comment on the rulemaking process” and referred questions to the HHS Office of Civil Rights, which is run by Roger Severino, a former Heritage Foundation staffer who has a long history of anti-LGBTQ activism and was called the most “dangerous person to head up the Office of Civil Rights at HHS” by HRC when he was appointed in 2017.

“As we have shown in our recent efforts to protect persons from disability and age discrimination during the pandemic, HHS will vigorously enforce civil rights laws as passed by Congress, before, during, and after any rulemaking,” Severino said about the rule change.

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