Even As We Celebrate Pride Month, Donald Trump Legalised Discrimination By Erasing Rights Of The Transgender Community. This Is So Sad
We’re celebrating June as pride month to acknowledge the progress made to secure the rights of the LGBTQ+ community and the fact that there’s still a long way to go. But four years ago, in the month of June itself, a gay nightclub in the US was attacked by armed men and 49 members of the community lost their lives in the massacre. The fact that Donald Trump chose this date to reverse the reformative laws Obama had set in place during his reign makes us feel he did it to spite the community.
When he got elected as the President of the United States, the world knew that of all things, minorities are going to suffer the most. And discriminators, like Trump, have no limits – racism, sexism, and discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community – it’s all-encompassing. The killing of George Floyd has highlighted that once again and it has led to a vibe of agitation in the country. But Trump seems to have felt he could do more damage and he did.
Recently, he invited the spite of not just the LGBTQ+ section but also heterosexuals who wholeheartedly support equal rights for all. He passed a law that reverses Obama’s nondiscrimination rule in the health sector. According to section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, discrimination on the basis of “race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in certain health programs and activities” was criminalised. In 2016, Obama had noticed the lack of explanation when defining ‘sex’ protected against discrimination. He thus had the rule changed to include those defined as “male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.”
Trump narrowed down the definition of “sex” to male and female, as per biology. This means that doctors can now legally refuse treatment to a transgender individual. Changing the definition of ‘sex’ in the rule, Trump has played a cunning move in taking away the rights of transgender individuals. In fact, Roger Severino, Director at the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services said that this will save the government $2.9 billion over five years because of not having to print notices of nondiscrimination.
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“The move is part of a broad set of policy changes that weaken safeguards for transgender people across multiple sectors, including education, employment and housing. The changes to the Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare, were proposed last year,” reports NY Times. In fact, recently Trump had also said that catholic adoption agencies can refuse a same-sex couple because it contradicts their beliefs. Reports also suggest that according to the other modifications in this rule, health care professionals can even refuse to perform abortions if it is against their beliefs.
He is openly promoting discrimination and heralding the country to a mindset laced with orthodox and biased beliefs. The doctors who had agreed to the proposal stated their religious and moral beliefs as grounds of refusal to providing treatment to the LGBTQ+ community. “The issue is not providing patient care, but whether or not the government can coerce me into abandoning my ethical commitments and medical judgment and force me to participate in certain controversial procedures and prescriptions,” Dr. McDole wrote. He further added, “Many health professionals like me who adhere to moral and ethical principles, which often reflect deeply held faith values, already face significant pressure and discrimination. The pressure to conform to abortion and transgender ideology can be particularly intense.”
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Even prisoners and criminals have the right to healthcare and doctors tend to them, without judgement. So how do these doctors think they have the right to refuse treatment on the basis of whether they agree with someone’s way of life? It’s a pathetic mindset that of course now a way of life in a country under the leadership of Trump.
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Recently, I wrote about The Half Of It, a film about a young Chinese-American girl coming to terms with her sexuality. Alice Wu, the writer-director of the film and also part of the LGBTQ+ community had said in an interview with Deadline, “Maybe it’s because of the Obama years, that as a country, we were getting better. We were all working on it and somehow we were getting better in terms of our views. We were getting more sophisticated in terms of our views around different prejudices. I think after Trump got elected, I realized that this idea I had of my country was wrong. It’s like there’s actually a whole group of people in the country who adamantly do not feel that that needs to be worked on. I think I just assumed we were all progressing.” And here we are, witnessing what was the fear of not just Wu but several people who feel vulnerable in America.
