Can trans rights survive in a Republican-controlled Congress?
by Curated January 12, 2025 · Gay News / Gay Pride / Gay Rights / The Advocate
Author: Orion Rummler
Originally published by The 19th.And what anti-trans policies can Trump enact without Congress? Here’s what trans people should know about how this new Congress, and the first days of Trump’s presidency, could shape their lives. federal funds from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care. Proposed bills also aim to charge doctors who provide that care to minors with felonies, redefine sex under the law to exclude trans people, ban trans people from the military, and dissuade state and federal governments from acknowledging that trans people exist. Many of these policies align with Trump’s own campaign promises. while 49 Republicans endorsed a bill that would do the same thing for all trans Americans, without age restrictions.That bill advanced to the House Ways and Means’ Health Subcommittee in December. One in five transgender adults receive insurance coverage through Medicaid, according to the 2023 KFF/Washington Post Trans Survey. Transgender adults in the United States are also more likely than cisgender adults to be uninsured, to have incomes below $50,000 per year and to be unemployed, the survey found —disparities that researchers have linked to systematic discrimination and transphobia. but, as Rolling Stone reports, it is unclear if enough Democrats in Congress are willing to use it to defend trans rights. Jael Holzman reports that LGBTQ+ advocates and some lawmakers are “quietly terrified” that Democrats may let Republicans enact a federal funding ban against gender-affirming care, if they have to choose between allowing the care to continue or funding the government.
What anti-trans measures have already passed in Congress?
Democrats have already compromised on anti-trans policies to get must-pass legislation through Congress.
The $895.2 billion annual defense bill signed into law last month prevents the children of military personnel and veterans from having their gender-affirming care covered by TRICARE, through a last-minute addition from House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican. President Joe Biden signed the law before Christmas, noting that it will deny health care “to thousands of our service members’ children.” The Human Rights Campaign described the bill as “the first anti-LGBTQ+ federal law enacted since the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.”
This tactic began in earnest last year — though it was not successful. In 2023, House Republicans embedded an unprecedented amount of anti-LGBTQ+ provisions into must-pass bills to fund the federal government. These provisions included multiple attempts to restrict federal funding for gender-affirming care, which all failed. In the final version of the $1.2 trillion spending package to fund the federal government through the 2024 fiscal year, only one anti-LGBTQ+ provision remained: banning U.S. embassies from flying the Pride flag.
In a new Republican-controlled Congress, those failed anti-LGBTQ+ provisions may return.
What anti-trans policies can Trump enact without Congress?
Even if anti-trans legislation is blocked, there are other ways to enact the president’s agenda.
Trump has pledged to carry out several anti-trans policies on day one of his presidency or soon after being sworn in. He is focused on restricting health care for transgender people through executive orders and directing change through federal agencies.
Trump wants the Justice Department to “investigate Big Pharma” and hospital networks to determine if they have covered up side effects of gender-affirming care or “illegally marketed” hormones and puberty blockers. He has said he wants the Department of Education to inform states and school districts that any teacher or school official caught suggesting to a child that they might be transgender “will be faced with severe consequences,” including potential civil rights violations for sex discrimination.
He has pledged to remove any health care provider or hospital that provides gender-affirming care to trans youth from the Medicaid or Medicare programs, on the grounds that providing such care violates the programs’ federal health and safety standards. Although Trump does not name a federal agency in this declaration, such a policy change would have to be done through the secretary of health and human services or rulemaking within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Trump also wants “every federal agency to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age” — a broad proposal to keep the idea of being transgender from being communicated to the public through the federal government.
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Original Article on The Advocate
Author: Orion Rummler
