US policy shift - Dept. Of Health and Human Services defines gender as a person's biological sex.

Correction not the OP the follow up post

It's a good thing for women sex actual biological sex is defined as the basis for law and health treatment. The unpleasant scare mongering of the OP shows their misogynistic homophobia imo.

Thanks Simon,

So your RN friend is saying that LGB people can now be refused treatment of any sort after being protected by this legislation for 3 years, despite this legislation deliberately excluding sexual orientation as a protected category and not including them under the sex discrimination category.

Is it possible your friend is mistaken or thinking about another change?

I admit I am horrified at the idea of anyone being refused medical attention which it seems to be quite a problem in the states for a myriad reasons.

Thanks to the earlier poster who has referenced CNN I'll potter off there for a look.

Who knows? Linda ran away when challenged and SimonJT hasn’t brought any clarity to the issue.

Lasttrain just to clarify you think that Linda is referring to different legislation which has significantly different intent to how it has been described?

On CNN only transgender people are mentioned and the effect this will have on obtaining cross sex hormones, surgeries etc.
Also I may have misunderstood but according to that govt document it would appear that LGB people have never been protected, even under Obama. Is this correct?

LindaLeeDanvers nice try, but what you're referring to is doctors refusing to do treatments related to homosexuality. Like refusing to "cure" someone of being gay. It has bugger all to do with treating road accidents and the like.

I agree Ova, rather than adding gender identity and sexual orientation as protected categories or even a combined LGBT category it looks like trans people were squeezed under sex discrimination

(which if you think about it would only probably protect trans women as sex discrimination protection is more often needed for women)

While the LGB people were left without protections.

I'm really confused by this. If in 2016 sexual orientation was omitted as a protected characteristic, how does new legislation in 2020 mean that doctors can legally refuse to treat gay people, whereas in 2016-2019 they were legally obliged to?

I'm not saying it's incorrect, I just can't see the evidence for this?

Oh great @SimonJT you obviously understand the US health care system better than me.

How did the change to "sex discrimination" in this legislation help gay, lesbian and bi people. Was that why sexual orientation was not included as a protected category?

I don't understand US law well but I think this is concerning. From what I've seen it's not a good thing nor what we in the UK would consider to be a gender critical positive move.

I think one of the issues for the US is that unlike the UK protected characteristics are not separate so everything stems from sex/gender and is lumped into one rather than gender reassignment being protected as well as sex and sexual orientation.

That's my crude understanding which is probably far from perfect.

I don't think this will be something to celebrate. Everyone should receive healthcare.

What with things like this and all the nutters with guns and the off the scale racism, I'm so glad I wasn't born in the USA.

Btw edit to my earlier post, I recognise that there are not the protections in law for sexual orientation and transgender people in the USA that there are in the UK.

Having reread the press release it was decided in 2016 not to include sexual orientation as an additional protected category

Does anyone know why that happened? It seems odd that the "progressive" change to include gender identity under sex discrimination was made but not the choice to count sexual orientation as a protected category.

And having read that I really don't understand what protections this provided to stop the type of things Linda outlined earlier.

Good question dolorsit - placemarking to see the answer.

Trump also chose to announce this on the anniversary of the Pulse shooting.

This allows people to refuse to treat any lgbt person who requires medical care, be that standard care as in vaccines, health screening etc to surgery and emergency treatment.

Due the insurance system this can prevent access to treatment altogether, if I have insurance from Company A I can only use facilities approved by Company A.

Medical care in the US is already worse for those from minorities, this leads to poor outcomes not only in health, but the social security system means if you are ill you simply cannot afford to live in many States.

Disgusting that the OP thinks people being denied adequate healthcare is a good thing.

Thanks Dolorsit
So hard to understand and I hope our NHS doesn't follow the US

Caly I think it meant that you couldn't discriminated against because you needed a termination but that doesn't necessarily mean that you would get a termination.

Although honestly I don't really understand and there is the whole issue of state vs federal laws.

This is interesting. So a Doctor wouldn’t be sacked? Or the nurses? If a lesbian was dying. What would they write as the cause of the death on the death certificate?.

This is horrendous!
What about a nurses/Dr duty of care are they not legally bound by that? like they would be even if off duty (UK).

So on what basis would they be allowed to not perform an abortion? Is it because they are against abortion in general? Where does gender identity or discrimination come in?

Sorry if it's a daft question

@LindaLeeDanvers

Hi, this a copy of the press release from the department of HHS

www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/06/12/hhs-finalizes-rule-section-1557-protecting-civil-rights-healthcare.html

It is referenced in this guardian article about the roll back of transgender rights. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/12/trump-transgender-lgbt-healthcare-protections

From reading the press release I can't see how this legislation protected gay people. It references a redefinition of "sex discrimination to include termination of pregnancy and gender identity, which it defined as “one’s internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.”

I don't see how this protected gay people, would you mind explaining? I am aware that gay and transgender people do not have the same legal protections but I don't understand how this redefinition of sex protected gay people from being refused medical treatment for being gay?

I note that this reversal to whatever "sex discrimination" was defined as previously also removes protection from discrimination due to termination of pregnancy. I find it interesting that this is not mentioned by the guardian nor were the changes to what I presume were obligations under race/national origin.

Finally Linda, if you are American would you mind telling me if press releases from HSS are partisan or if they are meant to be neutral. It's hard to tell from a British perspective.

Thanks and apologies for the @ if you don't like it.

I came on here to look for discussion about this because I don't understand what it means at all.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-lgbt-healthcare-hhs-aca-section-1557-a9564131.html

"Invoking “religious freedom”, the Department of Health and Human Services had revised a rule under the Affordable Care Act to revert to “the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology”. The changes revoke discrimination protections on the basis of ”gender identity” and sex, including patients seeking an abortion."

If true, this just shows what a toxic trojan horse transgenderism is, in both directions. There's a simplicity and truth to being LGB that gained us widespread support in the past few decades, even amongst republicans and conservatives. Sadly transgenderism is based on misinformation and lies and as such undermines our credibility with those right-wingers who are a) capable of logical thought and b) perhaps quietly looking for a way to backtrack on their previous uncharacteristic liberalism.

Indeed RuffleCrow
Which is why so many women can't get the perfectly legal morning after pill or abortions via some GPs or chemists if they claim it's against their religious wishes.

Does the USA health care system operate on the basis that doctors don't have to treat someone if they don't like the look of them?

The American system is incoherent and broken. All of it. There is nothing to celebrate because they give with one hand and take with the other.
They need to start over and model a new system.

imo, a system that has no clear rule over whether a patient must be given life saving treatment by the first available medic is not fit for purpose.