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

[yourethecomebackkid]

Love how they can’t help
themselves from framing it as an attack but this appears significant - apnews.com/bae1456be55955aab379a3541391f93b?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

‘The Department of Health and Human Services said it will enforce sex discrimination protections “according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology.” This rewrites an Obama-era regulation that sought a broader understanding shaped by a person’s internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination.‘

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.

Good question dolorsit - placemarking to see the answer.

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.

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.

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.

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'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?

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.

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.

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?

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

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

@dolorsit

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’m just going with what a friend in Washington has been saying, she is an RN at George Washington.

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.

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.

Correction not the OP the follow up post