It wasn’t the headline of the Associated Press article — "Appeals court takes up transgender health coverage case likely headed to Supreme Court" — that startled me. It was the caption underneath the otherwise routine photo of people at a podium.
A federal appeals court is considering cases out of North Carolina and West Virginia that could have broad-ranging implications on whether individual states are constitutionally required to cover healthcare for transgender people with government-sponsored insurance.
I was shocked. I’d not heard of any Medicaid or Medicare provider or state employee plan flat-out refusing to cover transgender folx. Was some insurance company actually being so openly bigoted? I read on; the first paragraph of the story repeated the same statement:
A federal appeals court is considering cases out of North Carolina and West Virginia that could have significant implications on whether individual states are required to cover health care for transgender people with government-sponsored insurance.
It isn’t until the next paragraph that you learn that the cases are just about state employee plans, Medicaid, and Medicare covering gender-affirming care.
The terms "transgender healthcare" and "gender-affirming care" are not interchangeable.
I don’t think I’m (just) being pedantic here.
Because I remember Robert Eads.
I never met Robert; I did not know he existed until more than a decade after he died.
I learned of Robert from the 2001 documentary "Southern Comfort" (YouTube, Wikipedia), which documents the his life… particularly its end.
Eads was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1996, but due to the social stigma faced by transgender individuals, more than twenty doctors refused to medically treat him on the grounds that taking him on as a patient might harm their practice. When he was finally accepted for treatment in 1997, the cancer had "already metastasized to other parts of the body, rendering any further treatments futile."
Robert was denied healthcare because he was trans.
Robert was not denied gender-affirming healthcare.
Robert was denied healthcare, and died as a result.
It’s hard to express exactly how strange this is to have to point out, because everywhere else in medicine, a particular type of procedure is not confused with healthcare for that entire group.
For example, Henry County Medical Center in Tennessee is closing its OB-GYN unit and birthing center. That’s bad, but you’d be surprised if that was reported as "Hospital stops providing pediatric care."
"Pediatric care" and "elder care" refer to any healthcare provided to people of a particular age, not just conditions that occur when one is young or old.
Likewise, "transgender healthcare" is healthcare administered to a person who is trans — not just gender-affirming care.
We live in a country where fellow American citizens are facing their rights being taken away on a nearly-daily basis.
We live in a country where even Homeland Security says the threats AGAINST American LGTBQIA+ citizens BY Americans are rising and intensifying.
We live in a country where Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), a sitting US Congressperson, openly wished for a "better society" where "quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung.”
We live in a country where bigots are actively working to make LGBTQIA+ people count as less than human.
And I am not fucking having it.
It is not just a grammar thing.
It is not a pedantic thing.
It is the lives and health of Americans.
The least the Associated Press — and other news outlets — can do is to recognize that trans folx are people, not just a type of medical procedure.
Featured Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash