Transgender health protections overturned
Washington (AP) — The Trump administration Friday finalized a regulation that overturns Obama-era protections for transgender people against sex discrimination in health care.
The policy shift, long-sought by the president’s religious and socially conservative supporters, defines gender as a person’s biological sex. The Obama regulation defined gender as a person’s internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination.
LGBTQ groups say explicit protections are needed for people seeking sex-reassignment treatment, and even for transgender people who need medical care for common conditions such as diabetes or heart problems.
Behind the dispute over legal rights is a medically recognized condition called “gender dysphoria” — discomfort or distress caused by a discrepancy between the gender that a person identifies as and the gender at birth. Consequences
can include severe depression. Treatment can range from sex-reassignment surgery and hormones to people changing their outward appearance by adopting a different hairstyle or clothing.
Many social conservatives disagree with the concept.
Women’s groups say the new regulations also undermine access to abortion, which is a legal medical procedure.
The ACLU has said it would sue to overturn the Trump rule.
Under the Obama-era federal rule, a hospital could be required to perform gender-transition procedures such as hysterectomies if the facility provided that kind of treatment for other medical conditions. The rule was meant to carry out the anti-discrimination section of the Affordable Care Act, which bars sex discrimination in health care but does not use the term “gender identity.”