Two protesters during an LGBTQ community march in New York in June 2020.EDUARDO MUNOZ / Reuters
The Joe Biden Administration has begun to reverse Donald Trump's policies regarding transgender people; first, lifting the veto for his service in the Army, and now, restoring protection measures to avoid discrimination in the health system. A new guideline, announced Monday by the Department of Health, establishes that federal laws that prohibit gender discrimination also cover the concept of sexual orientation and gender identity, a principle established by the Democratic government of Barack Obama. and that his successor republican buried.
Under the Obama Administration, a hospital could not refuse to offer gender reassignment treatments or surgeries, such as a hysterectomy, if the same procedure was possible at that center for other conditions.
It was one of the protections contemplated within the health reform law, known as Obamacare.
In June 2020, Trump overthrew it by redefining the concept of "sex", issuing a new policy according to which "sexual discrimination was prohibited according to the simple meaning of the word sex as male or female and as determined by biology ”, Although a federal judge blocked this guideline just before it went into effect.
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The meaning of the word “sex” is at the center of the latest legal debates on LGTB rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, religion and sex, but only recently has the United States Supreme Court emphasized that the latter, sex, also encompasses the concept of gender identity and orientation. sexual. It was precisely last June, as a result of three lawsuits of discrimination in the workplace, two by two homosexual men and another by a transgender woman who had been fired.
The Secretary of Health, Xavier Becerra, explained this Monday in a statement in which he announced the change of criteria of the Biden Administration that the "fear of discrimination" in the health sector can lead many people "to give up care medical, which can have serious negative consequences for health ”.
According to its Department, 25% of the LGTBI population that has been a victim of discrimination has postponed or avoided receiving necessary health care for fear of being discriminated against again.
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