#alternate alternate Transgender People Face New Legal Fight After
   Supreme Court Victory

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   Today’s Paper

   U.S.|Transgender People Face New Legal Fight After Supreme Court
   Victory
   https://nyti.ms/2Z3FKTz
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   in her words

Transgender People Face New Legal Fight After Supreme Court Victory

   Though the Supreme Court embraced a broad definition of sex in June,
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“To go to the hospital and be mistreated — it’s violence.”

   — Tanya Asapansa-Johnson Walker, one of two transgender women who are
   suing the Trump administration
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   About two months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in a landmark
   ruling that protections in the Civil Rights Act against discrimination
   in the workplace “on the basis of sex” extend to gay and transgender
   people, too.

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   published its modified rules, which raised the question: Is the Trump
   administration’s decision to erase Obama-era protections for gay and
   transgender patients now illegal?

   That question is at the heart of a lawsuit brought by two transgender
   women in New York — Tanya Asapansa-Johnson Walker, 57, and Cecilia
   Gentili, 48 — against the Department of Health and Human Services.
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   personal statements submitted by Ms. Gentili and Ms. Walker as part of
   the lawsuit paint a harrowing picture of the systemic discrimination
   trans people face when trying to access health care.

   Both women are prominent activists in the L.G.B.T.Q. community. Ms.
   Walker, an Army veteran, is the co-founder of the New York Transgender
   Advocacy Group, or NYTAG, and Ms. Gentili, is a consultant helping
   businesses with transgender sensitivity and inclusion issues. She has
   also appeared in a few episodes of the award-winning TV series “Pose.”

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   wary of seeking health care.

   “Trans people, because of all of our past experiences, do not go and
   access medical services when we need it,” Ms. Gentili explained in the
   interview.

   The dangers of that are amplified during a pandemic, she added. “My
   best friend, who is also trans, just died of Covid-19. She was sick for
   more than a week, and she chose not to go and see a doctor.”

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   life-threatening?”

   A 2015 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality of over
   27,000 trans people found that more than a third of respondents who saw
   a health provider in the previous year reported having a negative
   experience, including verbal harassment or refusal of treatment, and
   more than half of the respondents who sought insurance coverage for
   transition-related surgeries in the previous year were denied.

   In July 2016, the Obama administration issued a new rule clarifying
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   The rule made it illegal for health insurance providers to categorize
   gender transition-related treatments as cosmetic and to explicitly
   exclude those treatments from their plans. It also set up mechanisms
   for patients to file discrimination complaints with the H.H.S.’s Office
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   her requests and, at one point, leaving her to lie amid her own feces
   for hours — mistreatment that she says in her statement was because of
   her transgender identity.

   “I’m an honorably discharged veteran and to go to the hospital and be
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   2017 a breast replacement would have been deemed cosmetic. In August
   this year, the company changed its policy to cover “breast augmentation
   for transfeminine members.”

   That these experiences of discrimination persisted after the Obamacare
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   Image
   A rally to call attention to violence against transgender people of
   color in Brooklyn in June.Credit...Demetrius Freeman for The New York
   Times
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   expensive “regulatory burdens” on health practices and insurers — some
   of the same rationales provided for the administration’s ongoing effort
   to roll back protections for trans people in the military, schools,
   prisons and homeless shelters and for those working in federal jobs.

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   “It is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual
   or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on
   sex,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, President Trump’s appointment, wrote for
   the majority.
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   BakerHostetler. They argue that the H.H.S.’s new rule “directly
   contravenes” the new Supreme Court ruling and, if put in effect, would
   leave trans people once again vulnerable to discrimination.

   “Health care professionals and staff have discriminated against
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   “The bottom line is that Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act now
   means that you can’t discriminate against transgender people,” he said.
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