From The Frying Pan In to The Fire

If you thought that it couldn’t get any worst on the national level you were wrong, it just got a whole lot worst. According to NCTE,

Trump Appoints Radical Anti-LGBT Activist to Lead HHS Civil Rights Office
Roger Severino spent much of his career demeaning and marginalizing LGBT Americans; civil rights groups express deep concern, urge recusal

This statement was co-signed by the Center for American Progress, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Health Law Program, the National LGBTQ Task Force, the National Partnership for Women and Families, the National Women's Law Center, and Out 2 Enroll.

President Trump this week quietly appointed anti-LGBT extremist Roger Severino as Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS/OCR). The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), the Center for American Progress (CAP), the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the National Health Law Program, the National LGBTQ Task Force, the National Partnership for Women and Families, and Out 2 Enroll expressed grave concern that Severino, whose extreme views opposing women’s rights and transgender people brought him to prominence on the far right, will now be in charge of enforcing the very same civil rights protections he has worked to undermine.

And get a load of this…

Until this week, Severino served as Director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society for the Heritage Foundation. There, he authored a report opposing OCR's implementation of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, age, disability, and sex in federally funded health programs. Severino has called the efforts of agencies such as OCR to protect transgender people from discrimination an “abuse of power” wielded “to coerce everyone…into pledging allegiance to a radical new gender ideology.” Contrary the conclusions of most courts to consider the issue, Severino has claimed that applying Section 1557 to gender identity discrimination constitutes a “radical” “redefining” of sex discrimination that is “not justified” by the law.

We just went back to the era of Jim Crow.

And there is still gets even worst…

Further, Severino has falsely asserted that HHS’s 1557 rule “create[s] special privileges based on gender identity” that can “force doctors to perform sex-reassignment surgeries” even when they are not medically necessary. The rule does no such thing. And these medical treatments, which Severino calls “controversial,” are supported by decades of research and the opinions of the American Medical Association, American College of Physicians, and American Academy of Family Physicians, among others, as being medically necessary for many patients.

And women are not immune to his wrath.

Severino also strongly opposed HHS’s commonsense interpretation of Section 1557 to apply to discrimination related to pregnancy termination, including denying care to patients just because they have previously had an abortion. He has been a staunch opponent of access to contraception and other sexual and reproductive health services, opposing the ACA’s contraceptive access provision and calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

We have elected a psychopathic monster!