Trump moves to slash health care protections for LGBTQIA people
The LGBTQIA+ community already faces significant challenges, but this development is particularly harrowing in the face of a pandemic.
The LGBTQIA+ community faces additional resistance as President Donald Trump moves to rewrite legislation that protects people from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity while receiving health care.
The Trump administration moved to rewrite part of the Affordable Care Act which prohibits said discrimination. The revision would strike down protections primarily for transgender people and allow health care workers to deny care based on religious or moral opinion. Fortunately, it doesn’t impact EMTALA, the federal law which requires hospitals to provide anyone with emergency care.
But in the face of a pandemic, when resources are becoming scarce, many members of the LGBTQIA+ community fear they’ll be de-prioritized by default or be subjected to lower-quality care.
And some statistics show that LGBTQIA+ people are at higher risk of death if they contract the coronavirus. They’re 50% more likely to smoke than people outside the community, according to a letter from the National LGBT Cancer Network, which can heighten the negative effects of COVID-19. Plus it’s a population that is already more highly affected by diseases which cause individuals to be immunocompromised — especially H.I.V. — leading to deadlier consequences from the virus.
Transgender women may be particularly disadvantaged by this rewrite. After recognizing that men are more likely to die from the coronavirus than women, some scientists are testing estrogen as a treatment. These women thus face a similar situation to that which people living with lupus have: When a drug is used to treat coronavirus, it causes shortages for the people who need them regularly.
For trans women, less access to estrogen can be life-threatening. Under the rewrite, trans women won’t have the federal protections that may have prevented them from being impacted by the potential shortage.
Now that the Department of Health and Human Services has finalized the rewrite, it’s circulating through the Department of Justice. That is widely considered to be an indication that the rule is ready to be publicized. And Trump announced Wednesday that he is urging the Supreme Court to scrap Obamacare altogether.
So far, there’s no federal law that specifically prohibits discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people. Except for the Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, writing and enacting protections for the LGBTQIA+ community has been up to individual states.
But another exception is underway: In the coming weeks, the Supreme Court is set to rule on whether discrimination in the workplace is legal. Justices will decide if people can be fired — or not hired at all — based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Until then, many people in the LGBTQIA+ community are trying to understand what will happen if they get sick — with COVID-19 or otherwise.
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