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Affordable Care Act bars discrimination against people who are transgender
August 7, 2012
By Scottie Thomaston
Buzzfeed has the news that in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, discrimination against people who are transgender will be banned. The Department of Health and Human Services will investigate complaints of anti-transgender discrimination. The decision to investigate discrimination complaints doesn’t discuss transition-related healthcare, but it is a step to getting that care.
In response to a letter sent by a dozen LGBT health and advocacy organizations to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in June, Leon Rodriguez — the director of HHS’s Office for Civil Rights — wrote on July 12 HHS considers discrimination based on “gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity” in federal health programs or activities receiving funding under Affordable Care Act-covered programs to be illegal.
In the letter, obtained by BuzzFeed, Rodriguez agreed with the groups’ assessment that the prohibition on sex discrimination in Obama’s health care law prohibited discrimination against transgender people and stated that his office would investigate any complaints of such discrimination.
This new development stems from the recent EEOC ruling that discrimination against people who are transgender is sex discrimination. The decision backs up government agencies’ attempts to restrict anti-transgender discrimination.
That decision was Macy v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
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7 Comments Leave a Comment
1.
Sagesse | August 7, 2012 at 12:30 pm
@
2.
AnonyGrl | August 7, 2012 at 12:32 pm
That is good news!
3.
Deeelaaach | August 8, 2012 at 12:15 am
So does this mean that not only will it be illegal to discriminate against the transgendered such as myself, but that coverage will also cover our differently gendered bodies? For example, will MTF's get screenings for breast and prostate cancer, and will FTM's get screened for ovarian cancer, etc?
4.
David Belton | August 8, 2012 at 1:32 pm
So trans activists have harassed gay people into believing that no gay rights should be won unless they come bundled with trans rights. We had to sacrifice ENDA because it didnt' include "gender identity" even though we had been fighting for that law for decades.
So now these trans activists will surely refuse these trans-only protections, right? As they so piously informed us "None of us are free unless all of us are free." So let's see if the trans activists will practice what they preach.
I am not holding my breath. LGBT is a fraud that hurts gay people. End LGBT.
5.
Deeelaaach | August 10, 2012 at 10:01 pm
David, I'm not a trans activist, but I am a trans person who is interested in equal protection under the law, so I'm not sure what you mean by "trans-only" protections. I am interested to know if you believe in a trans agenda (my words, not yours) or something similar, and what that agenda or whatever word(s) you would like to use to describe it/them might be. Your words were "trans-only" protections, so I am curious as to what these trans only protections are. Can you give us your rationale for these trans only protections?
I am not trying to be antagonistic here; I truly wonder what "agenda" (my word again) you might see for people like myself. I will clarify though; my use of the word agenda likely stems from hearing so much about the so-called homosexual/gay agenda, so I apologize if the word agenda is a bit loaded.
I might also point out that the "trans activists" revolted in Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco in 1966 and SF has a plaque on site for the event. These trans women were revolting against the same types of harassment that led to the events at the Stonewall a few years later. Since I'm aware of that event, I'm aware that trans "activism" (read: people wanting to live their lives without fear of harassment) started for the T about the same time as it did for the LGB, relatively speaking. We're less visible because there are so few of us compared even to the LGB. But we are there, and we have been there, fighting for those same rights for about the same amount of time, and our so called agenda is lumped in with those of the LGB primarily by those who believe that the T are actually homosexuals – repressed homosexual some believe.
I'm not sure that I am making it clear why I am asking for you to explain what you mean – I'm not sure that it's even clear to me why I am asking you to explain. And yet here I am, wondering what you mean when your post indicates that I among others are asking for protections for us alone, or perhaps even for special rights – my words, not yours.
Are we not asking for the same protections that gay men and women are asking for?
6.
Sagesse | August 11, 2012 at 7:07 am
Speaking as one who remembers 1966 and 1969 (straight woman and ally), this discussion is reminiscent of the heated debate that split the women's rights movement at the time about whether to 'include' lesbians in the women's movement. Not that women had a problem with lesbians (although some did), but conflating women's rights with more controversial gay rights would make it harder to gain acceptance. Exactly the argument that transpired over ENDA, which might well have passed by now without the 'T' protections.
Rights are rights. Everyone deserves to have them. Take the protections that are offered and move forward. Don't get mired in the internally divisive and pointless debate 'you aren't a feminist if you don't support lesbian rights and we don't want anything to do with you'.
As an aside, sometimes 'T' only protections are enacted after LGB protections are in place. Is there any LGB – not T protections that is missing from the Affordable Care Act?
7.
Deeelaaach | August 18, 2012 at 4:45 am
Sagesse,
I don't know about the content of the ACA. I do know that most of the talk I hear about the ACA says that trans folk can't be discriminated against. That refers, so far as I know, only to actually getting care, and not the type of care that you can get. Technically speaking, I think this means that all care that a trans person can get should include health care appropriate for them, meaning that I could get medically necessary care for the biological parts I was born with along with the parts that I've developed either from surgical or hormonal interventions.
This is currently not the case outside of ACA. Not only are surgeries for trans folks still considered "experimental" despite tens of thousands of them being done in the US alone in the last decades, but technically speaking, I can't get a prostate exam covered by insurance because my ID says (correctly) that I'm female.
I don't usually follow posts at all because I don't have the energy for it due to physical conditions, but I have been following this one since I wanted to know if ACA would not only allow trans folks to actually get health care, but that it would also give us biologically appropriate care, up to and including SRS/GRS (sex/gender reassignment surgery). I only responded to ask the question, why not us (T) also? My worry – and I tend to be a worry wart – is not that after protections for the LGB are passed, that since we are a much smaller population than the already small and politically powerless LGB groups, that the urgency will be lost for us when the LGB groups gain their protections. Yes, it can be argued that our rights will come also, later. It can also be argued that our allies will become tired of the battles they endured for their own rights, and may not have the strength to keep fighting for someone else's.
I don't truly know which will happen but you can see why I would be concerned about the latter happening. I am concerned that the latter may happen mainly through attrition, and not because people don't care about our rights too. It is human nature to not focus on stuff that doesn't immediately concern us directly, and I'm worried more about human nature over time than any commitment on the part of our allies. But yes, I do see allies such as yourself – who have no stake in the current fight – who are still fighting for the rights of others after many years.
As a transgendered woman, I also see the strange looks I get from other kids when I sit in the parking lot to pick up my own kids after school. Maybe that's why I worry. Maybe I shouldn't worry, but I do. Go figure – it's human nature to worry, right? Even if I know I worry too much <wink>
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