He Has Our Back Again

Trump tore us down, President Biden is building it back up.

Biden Rule Would Strengthen Health Protections for Gay and Transgender People
The proposed rule would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity by health care providers that receive federal funding.
The New York Times
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
July 25, 2022


The Biden administration said Monday that it intends to enshrine anti-discrimination protections for gay and transgender people in the Affordable Care Act — a proposal that would officially reverse a policy adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services under former President Donald J. Trump.

The Trump rule, finalized in 2020, erased Obama-era protections for transgender patients. Last year, the Biden administration took a preliminary step toward restoring them, by announcing that H.H.S. would draft a rule prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity by hospitals and other health care providers that receive federal funding.

That proposed rule was released Monday, and is far more expansive than the Obama-era policy. It would, for the first time, enforce anti-discrimination protections for patients with Medicare Part B, which covers outpatient physician care.

The new rule comes as some states are enacting bans on providing gender-affirming surgery, particularly for transgender youth. Xavier Becerra, Mr. Biden’s secretary of health and human services, told reporters it would “remove the friction” that kept anti-discrimination protections from being available to all Americans.

The difference is like night and day, Trump brought gloom over the trans community and this is a bright ray of hope that it will nullify the Republican state laws banning us health care.

How those protections will play out in medical practice remains unclear. But Roger Severino, who ran the Health Department’s Office of Civil Rights during the Trump administration, said the new language would likely cover sex reassignment surgery.

Hopefully this will block the Republican states laws that make it a crime to treat trans youth with proper healthcare and also force the insurance companies to cover our healthcare.

I foresee many years of ligation ahead and this going to the Supreme Court where the decks are stacked against us. And if the Republicans gain control of the presidency and Congress expect federal anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-women legislation.