Trump administration moves to allow doctors to refuse trans patients as COVID rages

The new rule would roll back Obama era protections that ban discrimination against transgender people at the worst time possible.

As the U.S. passes 50,000 deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration quietly moved forward with a rule that would make it easier for doctors to refuse to treat transgender patients.

Politico reports that a new Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule that would remove Obama era transgender protections was circulated around the Department of Justice yesterday, one of the final steps before publicly releasing the rule. The White House also updated a website to say that the Obama rule is under review.

Related: Trump plans to redefine the word ‘gender’ to write trans people out of civil rights laws

At issue is Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The rule bans discrimination “on the basis of sex” in health care, which the Obama administration interpreted as banning discrimination against transgender people, since discriminating against someone because their gender identity doesn’t align with their sex assigned at birth is effectively discriminating against them because of sex.

The Trump administration has consistently said that protections on the basis of sex do not apply to anti-transgender discrimination, and HHS, which has been working on the new rule for over a year, said that the rule change would make its regulations “more consistent.”

LGBTQ equality advocates said that the change would allow hospitals and health care workers to discriminate legally….

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