(Washington, D.C.) – Today the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a final rule in effect allowing medical providers’ personal beliefs to dictate patient care.
Kris Hayashi, executive director of Transgender Law Center, the largest national trans-led organization advocating for a world in which all people are free to define themselves and their futures, issued the following statement:
Allowing medical providers a religious exemption to deny care to patients is outrageous, immoral, and dangerous. It’s commonsense for any patient to assume that healthcare providers, receiving taxpayer funding, will assist them and not deny them access to basic care. This rule undermines that basic principal.
Reproductive justice is a critical issue for trans communities. We know that many trans people rely on the forms of reproductive health care targeted by this rule and that this will only lead to more barriers in accessing this care. As an added insult, while the rule explicitly targets access to reproductive health care and other related health services, the administration absurdly claims that it will not have a disparate impact on LGBTQ people, people of color, and people with disabilities who already experience disproportionately high rates of discrimination in health care. Allowing healthcare providers to discriminate in providing any service for any reason will lead to further discrimination, it’s that simple.
Worse, this administration has signaled that it plans further, more explicit attacks on trans people’s access to health care. HHS has hinted that it will soon issue a rule questioning legal protections for trans people in medical settings. Transgender Law Center has worked in partnership with the National Center for Transgender Equality to launch the Protect Trans Health campaign to challenge the administration’s actions. People concerned about the attacks on trans people’s survival can sign up to stay informed here: protecttranshealth.org.”
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Transgender Law Center (TLC) is the largest national trans-led organization advocating for a world in which all people are free to define themselves and their futures. Grounded in legal expertise and committed to racial justice, TLC employs a variety of community-driven strategies to keep transgender and gender nonconforming people alive, thriving, and fighting for liberation. transgenderlawcenter.org