➤ HEALTHCARE OPT-OUTS, from p.6 ➤ TRANS CARE ACCESS, from p.6
tional Center for Transgender
Equality, described Trump’s move
as “an abuse of taxpayer dollars”
in the name of “empowering hatred
and bigotry towards society’s
most vulnerable members.”
“Stigma and prejudice are fueling
a public health crisis among
transgender people across the
country, one that manifests itself
as suicide, addiction, intimate
partner violence, and HIV,”
Keisling said. “Enabling providers
of life-saving services to worsen
these crises by rejecting transgender
people is a moral crime and a
severe abdication of HHS’s mission
to preserve public health.”
ACT UP New York also voiced
outrage, tweeting that the rule
“will disproportionately impact
our queer, trans, and non-binary
siblings and HIV and STI related
initiatives. Shame on this administration
for attempting to erase
us.”
Like any proposed rule, there is
a waiting period during which the
public can submit feedback. In
the meantime, Cuomo, who called
the move “heartless and dumb as
it would deny countless children a
loving family and a safe place to
call home,” said he would take legal
action against the administration,
but did not elaborate.
Trump’s proposal drew praise
from conservative religious leaders
who hailed the move as a win
for religious liberty. The United
States Conference of Catholic
Bishops unveiled a rosy statement
commending the administration
and griping about the Obama-era
rule.
“To restrict faith-based organizations’
work by infringing on religious
freedom — as the 2016 rule
threatened to do — is unfair and
serves no one, especially the children
in need of these services,”
the group stated.
New Ways Ministry, a group dedicated
to LGBTQ Catholics, called
out the bishops for their support
of a proposal it said “is not for the
poor, but harshly against them.”
“This new rule, now in effect,
will damage thousands and potentially
millions of Americans lives,”
New Ways Ministry’s associate director,
Robert Shine, wrote.
Nevada, New Jersey, New York,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island,
Vermont, Washington, and
Wisconsin — though Illinois is
still in the process of fi nalizing
an administrative policy implementing
that coverage and in
Wisconsin a federal judge in September
permanently enjoined the
state from enforcing a 1996 ban
on Medicaid payment for genderaffi
rming care. Washington, DC,
also provides such coverage under
Medicaid.
Twenty states lack specifi c policy
on whether gender-affi rming
care is covered under Medicaid,
including Alabama, Arkansas,
Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Indiana,
Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire,
New Mexico, North Carolina,
North Dakota, Oklahoma, South
Carolina, South Dakota, Utah,
and Virginia. Such care is sometimes
covered in those states, but
according to the report trans people
there often face barriers such
as inconsistent coverage, leaving
folks with deep uncertainty over
the future of their health.
Twelve states — Alaska, Arizona,
Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Missouri,
Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee,
Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming
— have explicitly banned
coverage of gender-affi rming care
under Medicaid. Many of those
states, including Alaska, Georgia,
and Missouri, focus their bans on
gender-affi rming surgeries, while
states such as Arizona have more
broadly banned “treatment of gender
dysphoria including gender reassignment
surgeries.”
Although most trans Americans
live in states that lack necessary
gender-affi rming coverage under
Medicaid, many states have nonetheless
made tremendous strides
in recent years. California started
offering gender-affi rming care under
its Medicaid programs in 2013
with other areas of the country
not following suit until 2015, when
Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts,
New York, Oregon,
Rhode Island, Washington, and
Washington DC, also moved to include
such care. Additional states,
like Maine and Illinois, just moved
to include such care this year.
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GayCityNews.com | November 7 - November 20, 2019 7
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