Federal Government Policy and Business

Quietly, the Federal Government is Expanding Transgender Rights

Government Executive: Something big just quietly happened to the Affordable Care Act. More than a half decade after the law’s passage, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has explicitly ruled that hospitals, clinics, and other health-care providers can’t discriminate against patients on the basis of gender identity. This covers a lot of scenarios: denying a transgender person insurance coverage for hormonal therapy just because they’re trans; refusing to provide sex-specific treatment, such as a hysterectomy, because a patient doesn’t look like a woman; harassing patients for the way they express their gender, which might include everything from clothing and hairstyle to voice and mannerisms; and more.

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