NCTE, TLC, ACLU, GLMA, and gathered to defend the trans community against the administration's attacks
Advocates and allies from across the civil rights community came together in blocks from the White House to demand the Trump administration protect the rights of transgender people.
The National Center for Transgender Equality and the Transgender Law Center held a joint launch of our Protect Trans Health campaign on Tuesday, July 17. Partners from across the civil rights community spoke out in favor of protecting the Health Care Rights Law that prohibits discrimination based on gender:
Mara Keisling, executive director, National Center for Transgender Equality:
“Transgender people deserve the same treatment every patient deserves when we are in need. We need to stand up to this administration and let them know that doctors and insurance companies can’t pick and choose who to treat, that transgender people are not optional. Our health is not elective, our bodies are not cosmetic, and our rights are not disposable.”
Raquel Willis, national organizer, Transgender Law Center:
“As a Black trans woman from Georgia, I'm constantly worried about my transgender friends and family in rural areas where they already have to travel 100 miles or more sometimes just to receive the medical care they so desperately need. As we fight to ensure all trans folks can survive and thrive, we have to preserve the options that we do have – and we have more than enough power to do that.”
Ruby Corado, founder of Casa Ruby and National Advisory Board member of Transgender Law Center’s Positively Trans project
“As a twenty-plus year survivor of HIV and AIDS who has already lost many friends, I am afraid of the many lives that we could potentially lose at a time when the HIV epidemic still affects trans people of color.”
James van Kuilenberg, student and transgender advocate
“In 2018, under the violently transphobic Trump administration, trans people like me are facing a new threat. It is expected that this week Trump officials will release a proposal that will affirm medical professionals in denying life saving care. Even before this proposal, trans folks like me are facing ignorance and unwilling doctors and nurses. Five years ago, my doctor ridiculed me. Now, according to the Trump administration, that doctor should have been able to completely turn me away.”
Gal Mayer, M.D. M.S. president, Gay & Lesbian Medical Association:
“All the leading associations of healthcare providers—including the American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American Psychological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association among so many others—have already expressed strong support for the Health Care Rights Law and opposition to any attempt to weaken the law. These organizations recognize that the scientific and medical consensus is that transition-related care is medically necessary care and that strong nondiscrimination protections are necessary to ensure the transgender community and all LGB people have equitable healthcare coverage and access.”
Thomas Coughlin, director of gender-affirming services, Whitman-Walker Health:
“Expanding legal rights to health insurance coverage and access to nondiscriminatory, competent care have made a positive difference to a community that too often has felt vulnerable, mistreated and stigmatized by the very people they come to for help. Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act has been tremendously impactful every day in the lives our patients & community. It is critical to our leading healthy lives.”
Laura E. Durso, Ph.D, vice president of the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress:
“LGBTQ rights are a part of the progressive agenda. And that isn’t just about the right to get married – it is a deep belief that all of us have the right to health insurance that doesn’t just help us in an emergency, but that gives us the care we need to be our whole and true selves. As progressives this is what we believe in and this is what we at the Center for American Progress fight for every day.”
Charlotte Clymer, press secretary, Human Rights Campaign:
"No person in this country, regardless of identity, should ever be denied medical care because of a provider’s personal opinions. If a health care worker is led by their own hatred, they should not be in health care. Medicine is the intersection of science and compassion, and LGBTQ people should not have to suffer because a doctor or nurse or other medical practitioner prioritizes their hatred over not only the compassion that drives healing but the science that makes it possible.”
Lori Woehrle, parent of a transgender child
“This rollback will endanger the life of my son, and the lives of all the trans sons and daughters out there. As a parent, I know I speak on behalf of many other parents in stating unequivocally that this rollback must be stopped in its tracks. No one, including my son, should fear a trip to the doctor or emergency room when they need care. And he should never be turned away from care, and put his health and life at risk, because of who he is.”
Ashley Allison, senior adviser, Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights
“Any day now the Trump administration is expected to roll back the Health Care Rights Law, an essential part of the Affordable Care Act that promises civil rights and health care protections for the transgender community. The administration’s attacks on the LGBTQ community, women, people of color, and others are relentless. But even when our government does wrong, we the people can choose to do what’s right. We the people will stop this heartless and heartbreaking move, just as we will stop a Trump takeover of the Supreme Court. Trump’s nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, passed his litmus test as someone who will undermine the ACA. We will not stand idly by while the White House turns back the clock on our hard-won progress. Together, we will win this fight.”
Kelli Garcia, director of reproductive justice initiatives, National Women’s Law Center
“We cannot let the Trump-Pence Administration continue the unprecedented attacks on our healthcare by rolling back the Health Care Rights Law. Its’ time they put patients first and protect trans health and access to health care, including reproductive health care for everyone. Our health and even our very lives could depend on it.”
Rachana Desai Martin, Senior Federal Policy Counsel, Center for Reproductive Rights:
“The Center for Reproductive Rights is proud to stand in solidarity with the transgender community and the civil rights community more broadly in saying that health care is a human right. No one should experience discrimination when seeking medical care.”
Georgeanne Usova, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union:
“The Health Care Rights Law isn’t just a critical part of the ACA that prohibits health care providers from discriminating—it’s also the first ever federal civil rights law to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in health care. Now it is in jeopardy, and as with so much of their anti-LGBTQ, anti-woman agenda, this administration will try to pretend it’s about religious liberty—but we know that what they are really trying to do is use religion to discriminate.”
Debra L. Ness, president, National Partnership for Women & Families:
“For the Trump administration to attack the Health Care Rights Law would be an appalling move that results in more discrimination in health care and fewer people getting the coverage and care they need. We intend to protect women’s health. We intend to protect trans health. We will stand together and fight back against this threat.”
