Following the latest attack on the rights of the transgender community by the Trump Administration, the LGBT Life Center has joined an effort led by Transgender Law Center and the National Center for Transgender Equality to combat a proposed Department of Health and Human Services policy changes that would allow health care providers to refuse to care for transgender patients and further harm a community Trump promised to protect while campaigning in 2016.
In an email to constituents sent earlier this week, the LGBT Life Center details the many ways the Trump Administration has broken its campaign promise including its ban on transgender soldiers from continuing to serve, removing guidance at the Department of Education to address bullying, support of “religious freedom” laws that grant a license to discriminate, and directing the Department of Housing and Urban Development to allow discrimination in housing and homeless shelters on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
This week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that health care providers may turn away transgender patients by ignoring the Health Care Rights Law, a part of the Affordable Care Act that bans gender discrimination. In their email, the LGBT Life Center stated that
“Condemning people – anyone – to the streets is a compassionless act that makes our communities weaker, preys on the most vulnerable among us, and threatens the survival of our friends, families and neighbors. Who will benefit from fellow Americans being denied the vital health care services they need to survive? This policy seeks to erase transgender Americans by blocking their basic right to access health care and their right to survive.”
According to the LGBT Life Center, transgender persons avoid seeking care within our health care system, noting that in the past year, 23% of transgender people have avoided going to a doctor out of fear of discrimination and 33% of transgender people who saw a health care provider reported being harassed, denied care, or even assaulted in the past year.
The LGBT Life Center encourages anyone concerned by this proposed policy change to take action and learn more about this issue at the web link found below.
For more information on the LGBT Life Center, please visit www.lgbtlifecenter.org or call 757-640-0929.
