The Human Rights Campaign on Sunday called on President Donald Trump to reconsider his decision to roll back transgender protections, which was first reported by The New York Times.
“Setting a destructive precedent, the Trump-Pence administration intends to erase LGBTQ people from federal civil rights protections and eviscerate enforcement of non-discrimination laws,” said Chad Griffin, the group’s president.
In its statement, the group, which is one of the leading LGBTQ rights groups in the U.S., urged Congress to pass legislation to preserve protections that would be lost if the Trump administration goes forward with the reported plan.
The New York Times wrote on Sunday that the administration is trying to define gender at birth as solely male or female and unchangeable. It also reported that the Department of Health and Human Services has undertaken an effort across several government departments to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex.
However, such a definition would set back the expansion of transgender rights which took place under the previous administration. Some people, the Times adds, live a non-binary or gender fluid life.
“They are saying we don’t exist,” said Mara Keisling, director of the National Center for Transgender Rights, in an interview.
A leaked memo obtained by the newspaper says that gender should be determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.”
However, Roger Severino, the head of the office of civil rights at the HHS, said “a federal court has blocked HHS’s rule on gender identity and termination of pregnancy as contrary to law and infringing the rights of healthcare providers across the country” and that the “court order remains in full force and effect.”
LGBTQ groups announced protest on Sunday in response to the administration’s rollback of their protections.
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