Michael Reynolds / AP
President Joe Biden speaks to a joint session of Congress Wednesday, April 28, 2021, in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Friday, May 14, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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Steadily and surely, the Biden administration is fulfilling the president’s campaign promises to restore protections for LGBT Americans against discrimination and bolster gay rights.
The latest step came this week when the administration reversed a policy put in place by former President Donald Trump that lifted some anti-discrimination measures in the Affordable Care Act.
“It simply says what everyone already should know: You should not discriminate against people,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told CNN. “That includes those based on sexual orientation or gender identity and when it comes to health care — we want to make sure that’s the case.”
The Trump policy narrowed the legal definition of sex discrimination in the Affordable Care Act in a way that it eliminated protection for transgender people. It also extended civil rights protections to insurers and health care providers to deny services based on gender identity
In a particularly cruel bit of timing, Trump announced the new policy in June 2020 during the heat of the coronavirus pandemic — and LGBT Pride Month.
The action drew condemnation from LGBT advocates, human rights groups and health care organizations, and more. The American Medical Association; the American Hospital Association; America’s Health Insurance Plans, known as AHIP; and the American Medical Student Association all spoke out against it. Human Rights Campaign president Alphonso David summed up the concerns well: “LGBTQ people get sick. LGBTQ people need health care. LGBTQ people should not live in fear that they cannot get the care they need simply because of who they are.”
Getting rid of ugly policies like this is partly what Americans hoped to accomplish by electing Joe Biden as president.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris heard that message loud and clear, as they’ve demonstrated with a string of actions undoing the damage caused by Trump and pushing LGBT rights forward.
This started on the first day of the new administration, when Biden signed a sweeping executive order clarifying that gay and transgender individuals were covered by anti-discrimination protections in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That order made it clear that LGBT individuals were protected against discrimination in the workplace, schools and elsewhere.
Days later came an order reversing Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military.
As logged by the Center for American Progress, those were among about 20 specific actions taken by the White House and the federal government to advance LGBT rights during Biden’s first 100 days in office.
Meanwhile, Biden appointed a record number of LGBT officials to serve in his administration, the most prominent being Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay Senate-confirmed Cabinet member in U.S. history.
“The president’s very serious about making his administration look like America,” Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, told NBC News. “He’s way out ahead of where the Obama administration was, and probably most importantly, he’s shown us that he’s serious. He’s shown us that he cares. We now have a president who’s not going to use us for target practice.”
Keisling isn’t alone in her sentiment about the Biden administration. In a recent poll of 800 LGBT individuals by the advocacy group GLAAD, 78% of respondents rated Biden’s performance as excellent or good.
More action is needed. For instance, amid the proliferation of hateful state-level bans on transgender athletes, the administration must keep pressing for Senate passage of the Equality Act, which would extend broad federal protections to LGBT individuals in a range of areas that include financial credit and jury service in addition to beefing up protections in housing, employment and education. The House passed the bill in February.
The stark fact is that it will take time for Biden to undo the sadistic actions of his predecessor.
But Americans can be assured his administration will keep marching forward.
