Trump Finalizes Rule Defining Gender as a Person’s Biological Sex
The Trump administration on Friday finalized a regulation that defines gender as a person’s biological sex, reversing an Obama-era rule aimed at protecting transgender people against sex discrimination in health care.
The Health and Human Services Department regulation says essentially that “gender identity” is not protected under federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in health care.
The policy shift was long sought by religious and social conservatives. The Obama administration’s regulation defined gender as a person’s internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination.
Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, policy adviser for The Catholic Association, praised the move. She said preventing “discrimination on the basis of sex” was intended “to ensure that women are treated on a par with men.”
“Changing the definition of sex to mean ‘gender identity’ and to include unfettered access to abortion would not have protected the vulnerable,” she said. “Instead, it would have made it impossible for doctors to decline to perform ethically problematic procedures (like late-term abortion) and experimental and dangerous ones (like the removal of healthy organs from young patients with gender dysphoria.) Getting the government out of the business of social engineering, and out of the way of sound medical ethics and patient care is a step forward.” (Read more from “Trump Finalizes Rule Defining Gender as a Person’s Biological Sex” HERE)
Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE
