As the Biden administration reinstates LGBTQ+ health care protections, Dr. Rachel Levine called out Republican attempts to exploit transgender youth to rile up their base.
In a New York Times profile, the Assistant Secretary of Health said the record number of anti-trans bills pushed by GOP lawmakers this year is about using trans rights as a “wedge issue” ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Of the more than 250 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation introduced in 2021, 120 are aimed at the trans community, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). 66 of those bills, an unprecedented number, seek to prevent transgender students from playing on school sports teams in alignment with their sense of self.
“It’s political — some people feel that this could be a wedge issue in the upcoming elections,” said Levine, who is currently the nation’s highest-ranking trans elected official. “It is also that transgender people have become more prominent, so I think maybe some pushback for that. But I think at its heart, this is politics.”
Republican leaders have essentially admitted that 2021’s wave of discriminatory legislation is about getting conservatives out to the polls. When the American Principles Project (APP) sent robotexts to Pennsylvania voters in the 2020 election claiming that Joe Biden supports “dangerous and irreversible” treatments for trans minors, the right-wing lobby group’s president told Politico last August that trans health access is a “powerful issue that the Republican Party can use to its success.”
Longtime conservative activist Penny Nance, the president of Concerned Women for America, described anti-trans sports bills the same way in a March interview with the national politics magazine. She predicted that restricting transgender student access to athletics would be the “wedge issue that will bring suburban women back to the polls and increase their support for Republicans.”
“Republicans would be foolish not to lean into it,” Nance told Politico.
Dr. Levine, who is the first trans person ever confirmed to a Cabinet-level position, said she has seen up close the way trans issues are weaponized by the right. When Roger Severino led the civil rights division in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Donald Trump, she met with him personally to discuss “whether to roll back civil rights protections for transgender patients,” according to the Times.
Although the newspaper characterizes the meeting as a “good exchange, polite and respectful,” it did not change the eventual outcome. In September 2020, the Trump administration issued a final rule repealing nondiscrimination protections in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for trans people seeking health care.
While describing herself as a “positive,” “optimistic,” and “hopeful” person, Levine said she expected that decision. “But you know, I was also skeptical that in the end it would make a difference because, again, I think it’s political,” she told the Times.
After being confirmed to HHS by the U.S. Senate in March, Dr. Levine presided over the restoration of those critical protections for trans patients on Monday. The Biden administration reinstated protections for LGBTQ+ people in federally funded health centers, while affirming that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in health care settings is illegal.
“The mission of our Department is to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation,” said Dr. Levine in an HHS press release accompanying the announcement. “All people need access to healthcare services to fix a broken bone, protect their heart health, and screen for cancer risk. No one should be discriminated against when seeking medical services because of who they are.”
Republicans may keep chipping away at trans rights to score political points, but surveys indicate it may not pay off for them. A March survey from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) found that 73% of respondents oppose laws seeking to ban trans athletes from playing sports in accordance with their gender identity. Meanwhile, a record number of Americans support LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination protections.
While the Times interview is among Dr. Levine’s since joining the Biden administration, this is not her first time calling out GOP bills targeting trans kids. In comments to Forbes last month, she called such proposals “draconian.”
“The governors have signed some of these bills to both limit participation of trans girls in sports and then also even these more draconian laws about limiting medical care for transgender youth,” she said, referring to anti-trans sports laws signed in Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, and West Virginia this year.
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