The stakes just got even higher
“President” Donald Trump and his administration continue to chip away at rights and protections of the vulnerable and discriminated. The latest instance is the approach that the Department of Health and Human Services is planning to take with respect to gender, affecting many transgender individuals.
According to a report in the New York Times, the memo that has been drafted would eradicate the federal recognition of approximately 1.4 million individuals who self-identify with a gender they were not born into.
The memo provides: “Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth. The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
The efforts appear to be spearheaded in part by Roger Severino, who is the current director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services and is the former leader of the DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society and also a former head of the Heritage Foundation. The “DeVos” in question is the same as the Secretary of the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos, and the Heritage Foundation is known for a variety of its causes, including the compiling of the list that Trump has been using to select Supreme Court justices.
The adoption of the new definition would have serious adverse consequences to transgender individuals in a variety of areas, including education, benefits and other ways the government interacts with individuals. The adoption would also permit discrimination against transgender individuals and would ignore medical assessments. This is just the latest example of the need to vote like the future of our nation and its standing hangs in the balance- because it does. The first step in addressing this mean, vindictive, discriminatory administration happens in two weeks- the midterms. Then, we must look forward to 2020 and vote this administration out.
Daniel is a lawyer writing and teaching about SCOTUS, and is the author of the book “The Chief Justices” about the SCOTUS as seen through the center seat.