Culture Tranny News Megathread - Hot tranny newds
- Thread starter trannyfucker
- Start date
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2016
"“We therefore felt ‘person’ was a more inclusive noun to use than ‘woman’."
How is it more inclusive when only women menstruate?
I swear these people have a lesser grasp on biology than homeschooled fundies.
How is it more inclusive when only women menstruate?
I swear these people have a lesser grasp on biology than homeschooled fundies.
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2019
View attachment 1572129
Superdrug has launched a new range of sanitary products "for people who menstruate".
The plant-based sanitary towels and tampons, marketed under the brand name Luna, aims "to be as inclusive as possible", the company said.
The back of the box reads: "A person who menstruates will on average have over 400 periods and use around 11,000 period products in a lifetime.
“However, we understand periods are never average, and so we have created Luna, a range of period products that suit you as an individual.”
Many approved of the transgender-inclusive stance.
Blogger Grace Latter said: "Oh my goodness. I am so, so impressed by Superdrug today; not only are their own brand LUNA pads are entirely plant-based, on the back it says ‘a person who menstruates’.
Another person added on Twitter: "Plant-based, inclusive menstrual products? I am here for this! Great work, Superdrug."
A Superdrug spokesperson said: “At Superdrug, we champion inclusivity and diversity, and are committed to ensuring all of our employees, communities and customers feel seen and included when visiting one of our stores or purchasing one of our products.
“Therefore, we wanted Luna to be as inclusive as possible.
“When writing the copy for the products we were aware that there could be customers of this range who are currently transitioning from one sex to another or who identify as Non-Binary but will still be menstruating, alongside the women that use the products.
“We therefore felt ‘person’ was a more inclusive noun to use than ‘woman’.
“We are continuing to review all new products and the language we use throughout the business, to ensure we are being as inclusive as possible.”
Superdrug launches new sanitary pads for 'people who menstruate'
Superdrug has launched a new range of sanitary products "for people who menstruate".www.standard.co.uk
This is possibly one of the only good things in this thread. If troons kept to troon shit and companies made small departments to appeal to their nonsense, fine. Even though I know those companies would quickly find there's no money it appealing to an itty bitty portion of the population. I hope they cost more, lmao.
The problem is this won't be enough. Having the sanitary women's aisle still in existence reminds them that women are real and they are still one so it has to be destroyed.
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2020
Uhh I might be revealing my ignorance here but 400 periods makes sense, that's like 35 years of having periods once a month. But 11,000 period products? That's like 25 "products" per period. Does a woman really use on average 25 pads every time she's on her period? Or are they using some other "products" which I am ignorant of?
Odessa Norwood
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2019
Five per day (assuming menstruation lasting five days) sounds about right. Obviously some periods last longer, so would use more and some women have really heavy periods, so need to use both tampons and pads at the same time.
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2020
Jeez, never knew it was that bad. I guess I should thank my lucky stars I was assigned male at birth.
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2016
Reminds me of the time is was reading an article where a female doctor expertly testified that so-and-so in hormones and biology would not make a trans-woman more advantageous against natal women in sports. Looking up her name via google it turns out she was an obgyn, the article failed to mention that, they just went with "doctor says".
As much as I dislike it, I can't really blame brands using genderspecial nonsense to differentiate themselves. Most people wouldn't pay extra for a new, unproven brand of pads or tampons. It's not like it's a fun thing to buy and show off. They're just garbage that need only be comfortable and cheap before you throw them in the trash. But if you pander to people's delusions and desire to virtue signal, maybe you can make a few extra bucks.
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2015
Idunno, the only period product I’ve seen women absolutely devoted to are cups and reusable items. I’ve have never heard other women rave about tampons, only rant about how expensive they are. They could have been on to something if they slap some marvel decals on a cup, but a lot of trans pandering is done with reusable period boxer shorts.
Calculus
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2018
View attachment 1572129
Superdrug has launched a new range of sanitary products "for people who menstruate".
The plant-based sanitary towels and tampons, marketed under the brand name Luna, aims "to be as inclusive as possible", the company said.
The back of the box reads: "A person who menstruates will on average have over 400 periods and use around 11,000 period products in a lifetime.
“However, we understand periods are never average, and so we have created Luna, a range of period products that suit you as an individual.”
Many approved of the transgender-inclusive stance.
Blogger Grace Latter said: "Oh my goodness. I am so, so impressed by Superdrug today; not only are their own brand LUNA pads are entirely plant-based, on the back it says ‘a person who menstruates’.
Another person added on Twitter: "Plant-based, inclusive menstrual products? I am here for this! Great work, Superdrug."
A Superdrug spokesperson said: “At Superdrug, we champion inclusivity and diversity, and are committed to ensuring all of our employees, communities and customers feel seen and included when visiting one of our stores or purchasing one of our products.
“Therefore, we wanted Luna to be as inclusive as possible.
“When writing the copy for the products we were aware that there could be customers of this range who are currently transitioning from one sex to another or who identify as Non-Binary but will still be menstruating, alongside the women that use the products.
“We therefore felt ‘person’ was a more inclusive noun to use than ‘woman’.
“We are continuing to review all new products and the language we use throughout the business, to ensure we are being as inclusive as possible.”
Superdrug launches new sanitary pads for 'people who menstruate'
Superdrug has launched a new range of sanitary products "for people who menstruate".
No real woman is going to buy a sanitary towel that rates itself 2/6 for absorbancy or 3/6 for night. Are these meant for fake trans periods only?
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2015
It really doesn’t mean anything, at all. There are many, many women that bleed through super max tampons within an hour an hour or two. Unless you use a cup you do not really know how much your are bleeding. Like many things, such as bras, womenly things are impossible to decipher unless you do research.
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2019
it's incredible that the more "inclusive" the language seems to get, the more your identity gets stripped away until you're boiled down to nothing but the fact that you breathe.
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2018
When did women, by law, have to take refuge during menstruation and births in, I am assuming, a special place, a "red tent"? These feminist fucks and trannies deserve each other.
Amber the Hedgehog
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
There has been all sorts of wacky laws or very least culture habbits around periods. Outside the first period witch was often seen as sign of adulthood (girls used to started their periods few years later) periods wasn't generally seen as good thing. It's after all uncontrollable leaking of blood over several days and has connection to not having babies so makes enough sense. For example in Old Testament has this delightful bit:
19 “Whenever a woman has her menstrual period, she will be ceremonially unclean for seven days. Anyone who touches her during that time will be unclean until evening.
20Anything on which the woman lies or sits during the time of her period will be unclean.
21 If any of you touch her bed, you must wash your clothes and bathe yourself in water, and you will remain unclean until evening.
22If you touch any object she has sat on, you must wash your clothes and bathe yourself in water, and you will remain unclean until evening.
23 This includes her bed or any other object she has sat on; you will be unclean until evening if you touch it.
24 If a man has sexual intercourse with her and her blood touches him, her menstrual impurity will be transmitted to him. He will remain unclean for seven days, and any bed on which he lies will be unclean.
25 “If a woman has a flow of blood for many days that is unrelated to her menstrual period, or if the blood continues beyond the normal period, she is ceremonially unclean. As during her menstrual period, the woman will be unclean as long as the discharge continues.
26 Any bed she lies on and any object she sits on during that time will be unclean, just as during her normal menstrual period.
27 If any of you touch these things, you will be ceremonially unclean. You must wash your clothes and bathe yourself in water, and you will remain unclean until evening.
28 “When the woman’s bleeding stops, she must count off seven days. Then she will be ceremonially clean.
29 On the eighth day she must bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons and present them to the priest at the entrance of the Tabernacle.
30The priest will offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. Through this process, the priest will purify her before the LORD for the ceremonial impurity caused by her bleeding.
31 “This is how you will guard the people of Israel from ceremonial uncleanness. Otherwise they would die, for their impurity would defile my Tabernacle that stands among them.
32 These are the instructions for dealing with anyone who has a bodily discharge—a man who is unclean because of an emission of semen
33 or a woman during her menstrual period. It applies to any man or woman who has a bodily discharge, and to a man who has sexual intercourse with a woman who is ceremonially unclean.”
20Anything on which the woman lies or sits during the time of her period will be unclean.
21 If any of you touch her bed, you must wash your clothes and bathe yourself in water, and you will remain unclean until evening.
22If you touch any object she has sat on, you must wash your clothes and bathe yourself in water, and you will remain unclean until evening.
23 This includes her bed or any other object she has sat on; you will be unclean until evening if you touch it.
24 If a man has sexual intercourse with her and her blood touches him, her menstrual impurity will be transmitted to him. He will remain unclean for seven days, and any bed on which he lies will be unclean.
25 “If a woman has a flow of blood for many days that is unrelated to her menstrual period, or if the blood continues beyond the normal period, she is ceremonially unclean. As during her menstrual period, the woman will be unclean as long as the discharge continues.
26 Any bed she lies on and any object she sits on during that time will be unclean, just as during her normal menstrual period.
27 If any of you touch these things, you will be ceremonially unclean. You must wash your clothes and bathe yourself in water, and you will remain unclean until evening.
28 “When the woman’s bleeding stops, she must count off seven days. Then she will be ceremonially clean.
29 On the eighth day she must bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons and present them to the priest at the entrance of the Tabernacle.
30The priest will offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. Through this process, the priest will purify her before the LORD for the ceremonial impurity caused by her bleeding.
31 “This is how you will guard the people of Israel from ceremonial uncleanness. Otherwise they would die, for their impurity would defile my Tabernacle that stands among them.
32 These are the instructions for dealing with anyone who has a bodily discharge—a man who is unclean because of an emission of semen
33 or a woman during her menstrual period. It applies to any man or woman who has a bodily discharge, and to a man who has sexual intercourse with a woman who is ceremonially unclean.”
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2018
I understand that, but I mean in any modern culture. The bible talks about how men without two ball can't participate in religious ceremonies but no one starts a ball-less sack group talking about historical beliefs. This is just grievance culture trying to bring past beliefs that no one accepts today into the present in order to score points.
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2018
They're common (though now illegal) in Nepal.
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2017
Not "by law" but by "tradition" which goes unpunished.
Abbos in Australia, right now. (Indians, too, of course - some deaths even make international news on a slow day.) This org, however, is not a women's rights org - looking at their 2016 announcements, they've always been abbo-flavored witchblr types and they've never been women-only. This appointment is not a loss for women's rights.
雑音🐈
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2017
women buy low absorbancy pads all the time. They're called dailies. And not everyone needs a diaper pad to sleep in on their period, especially on birth control.
queue-anon
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2019
Fuck me, these people are so delusional.
I like his implication here that Medicare was paying for SRS before 1981. From what I understand, the 1981 "ban" was simply the Reagan administration deciding whether it should be covered by Medicare at all. I've never heard that Medicare was paying for it up to that point. If it had, you'd think Burns could cite an example.
Also, considering the complications of SRS (not to mention it being not medically necessary), it's serious medical malpractice to recommend it to a senior citizen. Not that a single "gender" doctor has a shred of decency.
What the fuck else is insurance supposed to measure? I doubt they take much interest in the cosmetic appearance of skin grafts either.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the stinkditch "clitoris" just the tip of the penis? Why would irritation be more of a problem post-op?
I got bored about 2/3rds of the way in, but those parts jumped out at me.
Calculus
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2018
You’re thinking of liners which are shown seperately in the picture. The pads are the thin kind which means there is no difference in thickness compared to a higher absorbency one. Some types of birth control actually make periods longer and heavier.
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2019
Transgender People Face New Legal Fight After Supreme Court Victory
Though the Supreme Court embraced a broad definition of sex in June, the Department of Health and Human Services pressed ahead with changes that narrowed the definition of sex in the Affordable Care Act.
Though the Supreme Court embraced a broad definition of sex in June, the Department of Health and Human Services pressed ahead with changes that narrowed the definition of sex in the Affordable Care Act.
“To go to the hospital and be mistreated — it’s violence.”
— Tanya Asapansa-Johnson Walker, one of two transgender women who are suing the Trump administration
About two months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in a landmark ruling that protections in the Civil Rights Act against discrimination in the workplace “on the basis of sex” extend to gay and transgender people too.
But just three days before that ruling, amid a raging pandemic, the Department of Health and Human Services erased provisions in the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, about sex discrimination that included gender identity and defined sex as the biological male-female binary assigned at birth.
In other words, as the Supreme Court essentially broadened the definition of sex, the Trump administration had narrowed it.
That the two contradictory developments came so close to each other was most likely not a coincidence; the Department of Health and Human Services acknowledged in its published rules that the Supreme Court would soon make an important ruling in a pair of cases (known as Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga. and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) that could have an impact its actions. But the agency went on to say that it “need not delay a rule based on speculation as to what the Supreme Court might say.”
“The timing might even suggest to a cynic that the agency pushed ahead specifically to avoid having to address an adverse decision,” noted one federal judge, Federic Block.
Days after the Supreme Court decision, the health department formally published its modified rules, which raised the question: Is the Trump administration’s decision to erase Obama-era protections for gay and transgender patients now illegal?
That question is at the heart of a lawsuit brought by two New York-based transgender women — Tanya Asapansa-Johnson Walker, 57, and Cecilia Gentili, 48 — against the Department of Health and Human Services.
“The government failed to take into account the implications of the Supreme Court decision,” said Jason Starr, director of litigation at the Human Rights Campaign, a nonprofit that is representing both Ms. Walker and Ms. Gentili. “That makes this rule unlawful.”
A Lifetime of ‘Violence’
In addition to interviews with The Times, the more than 30 pages of personal statements submitted by Ms. Gentili and Ms. Walker as part of the lawsuit paint a harrowing picture of the systemic discrimination trans people face when trying to access health care.
Both Ms. Gentili and Ms. Walker are prominent activists in the L.G.B.T.Q. community. Ms. Walker, an Army veteran, is the co-founder of the New York Transgender Advocacy Group, or NYTAG, and Ms. Gentili, is a consultant helping businesses with transgender sensitivity and inclusion issues. She has also appeared in a few episodes of the award-winning TV series “Pose.”
Over their lifetimes, they have had consistently negative experiences at the hands of medical professionals. Both have been told that their gender identity was a psychological condition that could be treated (Ms. Walker was even given medication for schizophrenia), both have been misgendered, both have been called by the names assigned to them at birth rather than the ones they have chosen, and they have endured being mocked and denied care — all of which, they said, had made them wary of seeking health care.
“Trans people, because of all of our past experiences, do not go and access medical services when we need it,” Ms. Gentili explained in the interview.
The dangers of that are amplified during a pandemic, she added. “My best friend, who is also trans, just died of Covid-19. She was sick for more than a week, and she chose not to go and see a doctor.”
Once, in 2001, Ms. Gentili was suffering from intense stomach pains and went to see a doctor. The doctor started touching around her stomach as part of the checkup and asked her to slightly pull down her clothes, she recalled.
“When I did that, part of my genitalia became visible,” Ms. Gentili said. “The doctor jumped back and told me he couldn’t see me and sent me back home with no treatment at all. Imagine if it was something life-threatening?”
A 2015 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality of over 27,000 trans people found that more than a third of respondents who saw a health provider in the previous year reported having a negative experience, including verbal harassment or refusal of treatment, and more than half of the respondents who sought insurance coverage for transition-related surgeries in the previous year were denied.
In July 2016, the Obama administration issued a new rule clarifying that Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex and that included discrimination based on gender identity (“an individual’s internal sense of gender, which may be different from that individual’s sex assigned at birth”).
The rule made it illegal for health insurance providers to categorize gender transition related treatments as cosmetic and to explicitly exclude those treatments from their plans. It also set up mechanisms for patients to file discrimination complaints with the H.H.S.’ Office for Civil Rights and established the so-called private right to action, which allowed consumers to file lawsuits in federal courts related to reported violations of Section 1557.
The activist Tanya Walker during a panel discussion on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn uprising in New York, last year.Brendan McDermid/Reuters
In 2017, Ms. Walker was diagnosed with lung cancer, her second such diagnosis. When she went to the hospital for treatment, she was consistently misgendered with one nurse saying, “However you look and whoever you say you are out there, in here I am going to call you as I see you,” Ms. Walker writes in her personal statement included in the lawsuit.
After undergoing an intensive surgery to remove a part of her lung, she said she received inadequate care at the hospital, with nurses ignoring her requests and, at one point, leaving her to lie amid her own feces for hours — mistreatment that she says in her statement was because of her transgender identity.
“I’m an honorably discharged veteran and to go to the hospital and be mistreated — it’s violence,” Ms. Walker said in the interview. She filed a complaint with the hospital but said that she never heard back.
That same year, Ms. Gentili was also denied coverage by her insurer to replace her breast implants because the surgery was deemed cosmetic (the Food and Drug Administration states that implants are not “lifetime devices” and recommends replacing them to avoid health complications).
“My breasts are not cosmetic for me,” Ms. Gentili said. “They are part of my identity. At this point in my life, I just don’t see myself without them.”
In the end, Ms. Gentili said she paid for the surgery out of pocket. Aetna, Ms. Gentili’s insurance provider at the time, confirmed that in 2017 a breast replacement would have been deemed cosmetic. In August this year, the company changed its policy to cover “breast augmentation for transfeminine members.”
That these experiences of discrimination persisted after the Obamacare protections isn’t necessarily proof that they were ineffectual, said Sharita Gruberg, senior director for the L.G.B.T.Q. research project at the Center for American Progress. “The Civil Rights Act didn’t eliminate race discrimination,” she explained, “it signaled that this is something that our country sees as antithetical to who we are and gave people a mechanism to ensure the government upholds their rights. That’s what Section 1557 was, too.”
In her own research in 2018, Ms. Gruberg analyzed complaints filed to the H.H.S. of discrimination based on sexual orientation, on sex stereotyping related to sexual orientation and those based on gender identity, from 2010 to 2017. “What we found is that the impact of each of these complaints and investigations was so much bigger than the individual case,” Ms. Gruberg said.
“In a lot of cases, the H.H.S. worked with the entity that the complaint was filed against to remedy how care is provided beyond just that complaint, so enacting training for staff, changing policies and really identifying how they can improve care,” she said.
Time to ‘Pause and Reflect’
In August 2016, a month after the Obama administration issued its interpretation of Section 1557, a hospital system, Franciscan Alliance, and five states came together to challenge the rule’s definition of sex, claiming it was too broad and violated the religious freedoms of medical professionals.
That case was filed in the Northern District of Texas, and was one of several similar cases filed around the country. The judge presiding over the case in Texas, Reed O’Connor, in December 2016 issued a nationwide temporary injunction, blocking the portion of the Obamacare rule that prohibited discrimination on the basis of gender identity from taking effect.
Then President Trump was inaugurated. The new administration, instead of appealing Judge O’Connor’s decision, left it standing, signaling that it would come up with its own set of rules soon.
It took the Trump administration more than three years to propose a clarification: Sex “refers to the biological binary of male and female.”
This new rule (known as the 2020 Rule) “eliminates the 2016 Rule’s definitions” of sex, the health department stated. Additionally, the department stated it “no longer intends to take a position on” the private right to action.
That latter part, experts say, is significant.
In practice, it means that while individuals can still file a claim in court saying their rights have been violated, a court may say that the regulations do not permit such suits.
“Those protections are not laid out in the regulations anymore,” leaving it to individual courts to decide, said Lindsey Dawson, associate director of H.I.V policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation who also focuses on L.G.B.T.Q. health policy issues.
Plus, “litigation is expensive,” said Sharita Gruberg, senior director for the L.G.B.T.Q. research project at the Center for American Progress.
“That’s why having these really clear and explicit protections was so important because it allowed people to file a complaint for free and have H.H.S investigate that complaint,” she added.
The H.H.S. in its 2020 Rule claimed that expanding the definition of sex in 2016 was executive overreach and that it placed unnecessary and expensive “regulatory burdens” on health practices and insurers — some of the same rationales provided for the administration’s ongoing effort to rollback protections for trans people in the military, schools, prisons and homeless shelters and for those working in federal jobs.
The 2016 Rule also “imposed confusing or contradictory demands on providers, interfered inappropriately with their medical judgment, and potentially burdened their consciences,” the H.H.S. argued.
But, in a turn of events that the Trump administration most likely wasn’t expecting, the largely conservative Supreme Court embraced a broader definition of sex than the one the White House was relying on.
“It is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, President Trump’s appointment, wrote for the majority.
A few days after that ruling, Ms. Gentili and Ms. Walker filed their case in the Eastern District of New York — one of a handful across the country — represented by the Human Rights Campaign and the law firm BakerHostetler. They argue that the H.H.S.’s new rule “directly contravenes” the new Supreme Court ruling and, if put into effect, would leave trans people once again vulnerable to discrimination.
A federal judge has since temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s new health regulations from going into effect.
“When the Supreme Court announces a major decision, it seems a sensible thing to pause and reflect on the decision’s impact,” said Judge Block when issuing the temporary injunction on August 17.
The Trump administration has now requested a standard extension to either respond to the allegations or dismiss the case, and the government’s response would be due on Oct. 2.
But if the government decides to push ahead, its case now seems thin in light of the Supreme Court ruling, said Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan with a focus on health care law.
“The bottom line is that Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act now means that you can’t discriminate against transgender people,” he said.
www.nytimes.com
— Tanya Asapansa-Johnson Walker, one of two transgender women who are suing the Trump administration
About two months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in a landmark ruling that protections in the Civil Rights Act against discrimination in the workplace “on the basis of sex” extend to gay and transgender people too.
But just three days before that ruling, amid a raging pandemic, the Department of Health and Human Services erased provisions in the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, about sex discrimination that included gender identity and defined sex as the biological male-female binary assigned at birth.
In other words, as the Supreme Court essentially broadened the definition of sex, the Trump administration had narrowed it.
That the two contradictory developments came so close to each other was most likely not a coincidence; the Department of Health and Human Services acknowledged in its published rules that the Supreme Court would soon make an important ruling in a pair of cases (known as Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga. and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) that could have an impact its actions. But the agency went on to say that it “need not delay a rule based on speculation as to what the Supreme Court might say.”
“The timing might even suggest to a cynic that the agency pushed ahead specifically to avoid having to address an adverse decision,” noted one federal judge, Federic Block.
Days after the Supreme Court decision, the health department formally published its modified rules, which raised the question: Is the Trump administration’s decision to erase Obama-era protections for gay and transgender patients now illegal?
That question is at the heart of a lawsuit brought by two New York-based transgender women — Tanya Asapansa-Johnson Walker, 57, and Cecilia Gentili, 48 — against the Department of Health and Human Services.
“The government failed to take into account the implications of the Supreme Court decision,” said Jason Starr, director of litigation at the Human Rights Campaign, a nonprofit that is representing both Ms. Walker and Ms. Gentili. “That makes this rule unlawful.”
A Lifetime of ‘Violence’
In addition to interviews with The Times, the more than 30 pages of personal statements submitted by Ms. Gentili and Ms. Walker as part of the lawsuit paint a harrowing picture of the systemic discrimination trans people face when trying to access health care.
Both Ms. Gentili and Ms. Walker are prominent activists in the L.G.B.T.Q. community. Ms. Walker, an Army veteran, is the co-founder of the New York Transgender Advocacy Group, or NYTAG, and Ms. Gentili, is a consultant helping businesses with transgender sensitivity and inclusion issues. She has also appeared in a few episodes of the award-winning TV series “Pose.”
Over their lifetimes, they have had consistently negative experiences at the hands of medical professionals. Both have been told that their gender identity was a psychological condition that could be treated (Ms. Walker was even given medication for schizophrenia), both have been misgendered, both have been called by the names assigned to them at birth rather than the ones they have chosen, and they have endured being mocked and denied care — all of which, they said, had made them wary of seeking health care.
“Trans people, because of all of our past experiences, do not go and access medical services when we need it,” Ms. Gentili explained in the interview.
The dangers of that are amplified during a pandemic, she added. “My best friend, who is also trans, just died of Covid-19. She was sick for more than a week, and she chose not to go and see a doctor.”
Once, in 2001, Ms. Gentili was suffering from intense stomach pains and went to see a doctor. The doctor started touching around her stomach as part of the checkup and asked her to slightly pull down her clothes, she recalled.
“When I did that, part of my genitalia became visible,” Ms. Gentili said. “The doctor jumped back and told me he couldn’t see me and sent me back home with no treatment at all. Imagine if it was something life-threatening?”
A 2015 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality of over 27,000 trans people found that more than a third of respondents who saw a health provider in the previous year reported having a negative experience, including verbal harassment or refusal of treatment, and more than half of the respondents who sought insurance coverage for transition-related surgeries in the previous year were denied.
In July 2016, the Obama administration issued a new rule clarifying that Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex and that included discrimination based on gender identity (“an individual’s internal sense of gender, which may be different from that individual’s sex assigned at birth”).
The rule made it illegal for health insurance providers to categorize gender transition related treatments as cosmetic and to explicitly exclude those treatments from their plans. It also set up mechanisms for patients to file discrimination complaints with the H.H.S.’ Office for Civil Rights and established the so-called private right to action, which allowed consumers to file lawsuits in federal courts related to reported violations of Section 1557.
The activist Tanya Walker during a panel discussion on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn uprising in New York, last year.Brendan McDermid/Reuters
In 2017, Ms. Walker was diagnosed with lung cancer, her second such diagnosis. When she went to the hospital for treatment, she was consistently misgendered with one nurse saying, “However you look and whoever you say you are out there, in here I am going to call you as I see you,” Ms. Walker writes in her personal statement included in the lawsuit.
After undergoing an intensive surgery to remove a part of her lung, she said she received inadequate care at the hospital, with nurses ignoring her requests and, at one point, leaving her to lie amid her own feces for hours — mistreatment that she says in her statement was because of her transgender identity.
“I’m an honorably discharged veteran and to go to the hospital and be mistreated — it’s violence,” Ms. Walker said in the interview. She filed a complaint with the hospital but said that she never heard back.
That same year, Ms. Gentili was also denied coverage by her insurer to replace her breast implants because the surgery was deemed cosmetic (the Food and Drug Administration states that implants are not “lifetime devices” and recommends replacing them to avoid health complications).
“My breasts are not cosmetic for me,” Ms. Gentili said. “They are part of my identity. At this point in my life, I just don’t see myself without them.”
In the end, Ms. Gentili said she paid for the surgery out of pocket. Aetna, Ms. Gentili’s insurance provider at the time, confirmed that in 2017 a breast replacement would have been deemed cosmetic. In August this year, the company changed its policy to cover “breast augmentation for transfeminine members.”
That these experiences of discrimination persisted after the Obamacare protections isn’t necessarily proof that they were ineffectual, said Sharita Gruberg, senior director for the L.G.B.T.Q. research project at the Center for American Progress. “The Civil Rights Act didn’t eliminate race discrimination,” she explained, “it signaled that this is something that our country sees as antithetical to who we are and gave people a mechanism to ensure the government upholds their rights. That’s what Section 1557 was, too.”
In her own research in 2018, Ms. Gruberg analyzed complaints filed to the H.H.S. of discrimination based on sexual orientation, on sex stereotyping related to sexual orientation and those based on gender identity, from 2010 to 2017. “What we found is that the impact of each of these complaints and investigations was so much bigger than the individual case,” Ms. Gruberg said.
“In a lot of cases, the H.H.S. worked with the entity that the complaint was filed against to remedy how care is provided beyond just that complaint, so enacting training for staff, changing policies and really identifying how they can improve care,” she said.
Time to ‘Pause and Reflect’
In August 2016, a month after the Obama administration issued its interpretation of Section 1557, a hospital system, Franciscan Alliance, and five states came together to challenge the rule’s definition of sex, claiming it was too broad and violated the religious freedoms of medical professionals.
That case was filed in the Northern District of Texas, and was one of several similar cases filed around the country. The judge presiding over the case in Texas, Reed O’Connor, in December 2016 issued a nationwide temporary injunction, blocking the portion of the Obamacare rule that prohibited discrimination on the basis of gender identity from taking effect.
Then President Trump was inaugurated. The new administration, instead of appealing Judge O’Connor’s decision, left it standing, signaling that it would come up with its own set of rules soon.
It took the Trump administration more than three years to propose a clarification: Sex “refers to the biological binary of male and female.”
This new rule (known as the 2020 Rule) “eliminates the 2016 Rule’s definitions” of sex, the health department stated. Additionally, the department stated it “no longer intends to take a position on” the private right to action.
That latter part, experts say, is significant.
In practice, it means that while individuals can still file a claim in court saying their rights have been violated, a court may say that the regulations do not permit such suits.
“Those protections are not laid out in the regulations anymore,” leaving it to individual courts to decide, said Lindsey Dawson, associate director of H.I.V policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation who also focuses on L.G.B.T.Q. health policy issues.
Plus, “litigation is expensive,” said Sharita Gruberg, senior director for the L.G.B.T.Q. research project at the Center for American Progress.
“That’s why having these really clear and explicit protections was so important because it allowed people to file a complaint for free and have H.H.S investigate that complaint,” she added.
The H.H.S. in its 2020 Rule claimed that expanding the definition of sex in 2016 was executive overreach and that it placed unnecessary and expensive “regulatory burdens” on health practices and insurers — some of the same rationales provided for the administration’s ongoing effort to rollback protections for trans people in the military, schools, prisons and homeless shelters and for those working in federal jobs.
The 2016 Rule also “imposed confusing or contradictory demands on providers, interfered inappropriately with their medical judgment, and potentially burdened their consciences,” the H.H.S. argued.
But, in a turn of events that the Trump administration most likely wasn’t expecting, the largely conservative Supreme Court embraced a broader definition of sex than the one the White House was relying on.
“It is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, President Trump’s appointment, wrote for the majority.
A few days after that ruling, Ms. Gentili and Ms. Walker filed their case in the Eastern District of New York — one of a handful across the country — represented by the Human Rights Campaign and the law firm BakerHostetler. They argue that the H.H.S.’s new rule “directly contravenes” the new Supreme Court ruling and, if put into effect, would leave trans people once again vulnerable to discrimination.
A federal judge has since temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s new health regulations from going into effect.
“When the Supreme Court announces a major decision, it seems a sensible thing to pause and reflect on the decision’s impact,” said Judge Block when issuing the temporary injunction on August 17.
The Trump administration has now requested a standard extension to either respond to the allegations or dismiss the case, and the government’s response would be due on Oct. 2.
But if the government decides to push ahead, its case now seems thin in light of the Supreme Court ruling, said Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan with a focus on health care law.
“The bottom line is that Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act now means that you can’t discriminate against transgender people,” he said.
Transgender People Face New Legal Fight After Supreme Court Victory
Though the Supreme Court embraced a broad definition of sex in June, the Department of Health and Human Services pressed ahead with changes that narrowed the definition of sex in the Affordable Care Act.