President Trump has finalized a regulation that defines gender as biological sex, reversing an Obama-era rule.
The change was long sought-after by religious and social conservatives. The Obama administration defined gender as a person’s internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination.
“Changing the definition of sex to mean ‘gender identity’ and to include unfettered access to abortion would not have protected the vulnerable,” Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, policy adviser for The Catholic Association 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,” she added.
Under the Obama-era rule, a hospital was required to perform gender-transition procedures such as hysterectomies, for example, if the facility provided that procedure as treatment for other medical conditions.
Gregory Baylor, senior counsel of the nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, praised the administration’s decision, saying it was the right thing to do and would have far-reaching impacts.
“Replacing the objective concept of sex with the subjective and fluid notion of gender identity, as some courts and the prior administration have tried to do, has serious consequences for women’s sports and female-only spaces like school locker rooms, showers, and homeless women’s shelters,” he said.
“Confirming the clear meaning of sex as grounded in human biology ensures that women will continue to have equal opportunities in sports, school, and work, and it protects the privacy rights of all Americans.”
The proposed new rule would also end the requirement for insurers to translate “explanation of benefits” notices, for example, into several different languages for patients.
The Trump administration says the requirement represents a needless burden on providers that translates into billions of pages of notices mailed annually at an estimated cost of $3.2 billion over five years.
Photo by The White House