Critics question Biden’s transgender rule that could cost doctors their jobs

(The Center Square) – The Biden administration has issued yet another rule redefining “sex” to fit progressive gender ideology politics, this time in healthcare.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights along with the the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued the final rule, which extends a wide swath of legal protections to transgender drugs and surgeries and in turn opens the door to sue those healthcare providers and insurers who do not support them.

HHS argues the rule is allowed under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. The rule would apply to any healthcare providers or insurers who receive federal funding.

“Today’s rule is a giant step forward for this country toward a more equitable and inclusive health care system, and means that Americans across the country now have a clear way to act on their rights against discrimination when they go to the doctor, talk with their health plan, or engage with health programs run by HHS,” said Secretary Xavier Becerra.

Critics, though, argue this rule is the latest effort by the Biden administration to force a transgender agenda on Americans using federal rule-making.

“The Biden administration’s new healthcare mandate is a vast overreach that turns medicine upside-down,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Julie Marie Blake said in a statement. “Congress never voted to redefine sex in the Affordable Care Act to add gender identity. The rule harms families and children by promoting dangerous, life-altering ‘gender-transition’ procedures that remove healthy body parts or block puberty. The Biden administration’s egregious rule would alter the United States’ medical system for the worst.”

A federal district court ruled in March that the Biden administration could not require religious employers and religious healthcare providers to provide for transgender drugs and surgeries.

A similar Biden administration rule via the Department of Education to redefine sex in a similar manner has gotten national attention and pushback. The rule change, which critics say would end women’s sports in schools as we know it, is already facing a legal challenge from a collection of states.

The similar HHS rule change, however, has received less attention but could be just as impactful.

“Just days after the Biden administration gutted protections for women and girls in Title IX, they have now moved to inject radical gender ideology into hospitals and medical centers nationwide,” Terry Schilling, president of American Principles Project, said in a statement.

Schilling argued the rule would be used to require healthcare providers to offer sex-change operations, puberty blockers and more even to minors or face losing their license.

“Insurers will be compelled to cover these practices,” Schilling continued. “And individual doctors, nurses, and other practitioners will be pressured to facilitate sex changes or else risk career-ending lawsuits, even if it goes against their conscience and best medical judgment.

“Not only is this rule a blatant invasion of politics into medicine, but it also represents the privileging of an insane ideology over science and biology,” Schilling added.