The Biden administration is expected to release a new rule this month that would solidify its embrace of radical gender ideology and force everyone else to do the same.
The rule would fall under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits sex discrimination in health programs and activities funded by the Department of Health and Human Services. It would likely prohibit healthcare centers that accept federal Medicaid and Medicare funding from engaging in “gender identity discrimination.” In other words, the rule would require doctors and other medical professionals to perform irreversible gender transition surgeries, provide chemically-altering hormone treatment, force insurance plans to cover such interventions, and be liable to allegations of discrimination.
We’ve been down this road before, albeit over a different issue. Remember the Christian family-owned company Hobby Lobby? Hobby Lobby fought the federal government over an Obamacare mandate that required employment-based group healthcare plans to cover contraception. The Green family argued that Hobby Lobby’s for-profit status should not exclude the company from the religious exemption to which their beliefs entitled them, and the Supreme Court agreed 5-4.
But that case has not stopped leftist government officials from trying to use Obamacare as a political weapon. President Joe Biden’s own HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, spent nearly three years in courts as California’s attorney general fighting a Trump-era rule that exempted religious groups from Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate. His goal was simple: Force religious groups, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, to cover contraceptives in their insurance plans, even if doing so violated their religious beliefs.
Becerra’s intentions are no different today than they were in 2017. Under his direction, the HHS reportedly wants to use Obamacare as a vehicle for gender ideology and force medical professionals and private companies, regardless of their religious beliefs, to support and even fund it under the guise of nondiscrimination.
This poses a serious threat to religious liberty. However, it is also a threat to basic medical ethics. One need not be a Christian to understand that the chemical and physical mutilation of gender-confused persons, especially minors, is wrong. Several doctors have come forward recently to argue as much, as have many transgender adults who regret the permanent damage they did to their bodies when they were younger.
The data support their concerns. For example, an extensive study conducted in Sweden found that 10 to 15 years after sex-reassignment surgeries, the suicide rate of those who underwent the procedure rose to 20 times that of their peers. Another review of more than 100 follow-up studies of transgender individuals who underwent sex changes, undertaken by Birmingham University’s Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility, found that none of the studies provided conclusive evidence that gender reassignment benefited the patients. And just a couple of years ago, U.S. researchers were forced to issue a correction to a major 2019 study that claimed transgender individuals who underwent reassignment surgeries showed significantly improved mental health. The study now states, “The results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts.”
Even the Obama administration admitted back in 2016 that there was too little evidence to support gender transition procedures, and that, as a result, it could not justify mandating that they be covered by Medicare.
“Based on a thorough review of the clinical evidence available at this time, there is not enough evidence to determine whether gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries with gender dysphoria. There were conflicting (inconsistent) study results — of the best designed studies, some reported benefits while others reported harms,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wrote at the time.
What has changed since then? The data certainly have not. Yet the Biden administration has endorsed “gender-affirming” care anyway, and now, it reportedly intends to force medical professionals and insurance companies to follow suit.
This policy would be disastrous. Doctors would be forced to set aside their ethical concerns to comply with a government mandate they know is wrong, and religious organizations would undoubtedly end up back in court if they object. And meanwhile, the young adults and children who have fallen prey to this harmful ideology would be allowed and even encouraged to make permanent changes to their bodies in the hope of fixing the psychological and social distress they feel.
But we all know these interventions won’t “fix” anything. Gender identity is not reality; biological sex is. A man cannot “become” a woman; all he can do is look a little bit more like one. Pretending otherwise, or “affirming” a person’s gender identity, is nothing more than selling that person a lie — one with permanent consequences, few of which are good.
Biden wants to turn this lie into government policy. If he does, he must also own its consequences.
Kaylee McGhee White is the deputy editor of Restoring America for the Washington Examiner and a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.
