Sunday, January 21, 2024

First They Said…

… It is to protect the children but the truth has come out, it is there animosity against anything LGBTQ+.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced proposals this month that transgender advocates say could block access to gender-affirming care provided by independent clinics and general practitioners, leaving thousands of adults scrambling for treatment and facing health risks.

[…]

“My mental health has been stressed,” Colby [A trans man] said. “These are feelings related to being transgender that I have not felt in years, but now I’m thrown into feeling devastated about my experience as a transgender person.”

DeWine announced the proposed rules amid a whirl of activity that could push Ohio further than most other states in controlling gender-affirming care and make it just the second to set forth restrictions on adult care.
The Republicans don’t care about the law they just care about rallying their base. The Supreme Court has already that the states cannot stop our healthcare. The GLBT Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) wrote in 2021…
As an organization that has argued three landmark cases before the United States Supreme Court, we know the power of our Nation’s highest court to either harm or uplift the daily lives of LGBTQ+ people. For our client Alexander Pangborn, a recent Supreme Court ruling had a tremendous positive impact, as it should for transgender people across the country with employer-funded health benefit plans.

[…]

To be sure there has been enormous progress in removing obstacles to health care for transgender people. But despite clear protections in law, significant problems remain in both employer-sponsored and traditional insurance plans. We continue to see and hear of plans with categorical exclusions of all treatment. Transgender people also still encounter categorical denials of specific types of treatment such as facial feminization surgery and other procedures insurers improperly categorize as cosmetic. We still see categorical exclusions of necessary chest reconstruction and other surgeries for minors.
While this case is slightly different it still affirmed our healthcare.

But lower courts (Thanks to Trump) have ruled differently. Al Jazeera reported last summer that,
US court battles ramp up over state transgender healthcare restrictions
Several courts have allowed state governments to enforce restrictions, with more rulings on the horizon.


US court battles ramp up over state transgender healthcare restrictions

Several courts have allowed state governments to enforce restrictions, with more rulings on the horizon.

[…]

The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that Alabama can enforce its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, vacating a lower court ruling against the 2022 law.

The earlier ruling is still keeping Alabama’s ban on hold until the appeals decision formally takes effect, which could take several days.

This was the second federal appeals panel to allow a state ban to move forward, after a three-judge panel said last month that Tennessee and Kentucky can enforce their bans – for now.

In Georgia, a federal judge on Sunday blocked a ban on doctors starting hormone therapy for transgender people under the age of 18. Since Georgia is part of the circuit that allowed Alabama’s ban to be enforced, the state has asked the judge to reinstate the prohibition.

[…]

A federal judge in June struck down Arkansas’s first-in-the-nation ban, and the state has appealed that decision. The judge in that case ruled the prohibition violated the constitutional rights of transgender youth and families, as well as medical providers. He also rejected proponents’ claims that the treatments were experimental.
The AP article goes on to say,
Still, advocates say those rules go beyond the standard of care established by organizations including the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and at any rate there are no sketchy gender clinics in the state.

“It’s bad and unnecessary bureaucracy, and we know what they’re trying to do — and they’re hoping to cut off health care for as many people as possible,” said Dara Adkison, board secretary for the advocacy group TransOhio. “It’s not subtle.”

Mimi Rivard, a nurse practitioner and clinical director at Central Outreach Wellness Center Ohio’s Columbus clinic, said clinics already successfully prescribe hormones without the involvement of endocrinologists and there aren’t enough of those specialists in the state to do the current work, plus serve an estimated 60,000 Ohioans of transgender experience.
 
[...]
 
 “The rules are draconian. They don't follow any standard of care,” Streed said. “It is a veil of this false sense of safety that will effectively lead to a ban.”
So… where does that leave us?

On the long road to the Supreme Court where our rights to determine what we can do with our bodies is hanging by a thread.

My body, my choice!

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