Transgender Health § 1557 Project
Overview
Transgender, non-binary, intersex, and two-spirit people — and especially transgender youth — have been facing vicious, highly politicized, and rapidly escalating attacks on their right to best practice health care. Equitable access to safe, affirming and scientifically-validated medical care is a backbone to a just, democratic society. At L4GG, we believe that no court or legislature should step in between a patient and their doctor. Not for reproductive healthcare. Not for transgender healthcare. Not for any healthcare.
In recent years, some lawmakers have used stoking fear and hatred against gender-affirming care and the transgender community as a “wedge issue”, using misinformation as justification to enact laws to further marginalize an already marginalized group. Just this month, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a bill that would make providing best practice gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors into a felony nationwide. On August 21, Florida published a rule to prohibit its state Medicaid from covering gender-affirming care. Earlier this year, the Florida Department of Health published a document that advised against giving transgender young people any gender affirming care, including even “social transition”—acknowledging a child is the gender the child says they are. In July, Alabama passed a bill banning gender-affirming care to minors. And back in February, Texas directed its Department of Family Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate caregivers who authorized gender-affirming care for their children.
Gender-affirming care is life-saving treatment, and laws denying that treatment will lead to children’s deaths. It has much higher satisfaction rates than most other types of medical care, and is backed by a solid base of evidence supported by every major U.S medical and mental health organization, including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, Federation of Pediatric Organizations, and American Psychological Association, for both transgender youth and adults.
This is not just a gender justice but a racial justice one – transgender people of color face higher access disparities and negative health outcomes when compared to their white transgender, or people of color cisgender, counterparts. For example, 32% of transgender people of color have no health insurance coverage as opposed to 22% overall, and while 0.3% of the overall population lives with HIV, a full 19% of Black, trans women do.
Increased federal and state protections are more necessary than ever. As part of the Biden administration’s response to anti-trans policies, it has released a proposed rule that would increase protections for transgender Americans seeking health care. This project aims to provide our partners at National Coalition for Transgender Equality (NCTE), Transgender Law Center (TLC), and Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) with the relevant provision(s) in each state’s code that either expand or contract protections for transgender and non-binary health, so that advocates can target comments about the administration’s proposed rulemaking to frontline states, and to develop model policies to increase these protections.
Project Details
Seeking attorneys from law firms and/or corporate legal departments to research the law in 50 states plus DC and Puerto Rico
Data will be used to target comments about the administration’s proposed rulemaking to frontline states and to develop model policies to increase protections
No prior experience required
2-3 hours of work per state/territory
Deadline is COB on Monday, September 12, 2022
To express interest in this project, please fill out the form on this page and select “Transgender Health § 1557 Project” in the Projects field. In the “Questions / Comments” field, please provide an estimate of how many states/territories your attorneys will be able to take on.