THIRD WORLD USA
"It's been torture": LGBTQ health care suffers amid coronavirus

Li Cohen,CBS News•April 10, 2020


The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted life for billions of people, forcing the world to deal with a sudden loss of jobs, security, and regular health care. But for those who identify as .

"If someone is transphobic, if someone is anti-black, if someone is anti-immigrant, if someone is anti-queer, and they have to make a choice between a patient who is visibly gender non-conforming, and someone who is gender conforming ... it actually doesn't matter whether something is scientifically sound or not," Swadhin said. "If the health care provider has that bias then that is what's going to steer their hand in the moment of making decisions."

Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative at the Human Rights Campaign, said, "Out of all the folks under the LGBTQ spectrum, trans folks are going to fare even worse" throughout the pandemic. She added, "I don't think that we can rely on the federal government to provide any protections in favor of trans folks."

In the more than 300 pages that comprise the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress, there is no mention of the LGBT community. On March 31, the International Transgender Day of Visibility, the governor of Idaho signed two anti-transgender bills into law, one of which bans people from changing the sex listed on their birth certificates.

"A lot of our lawmakers don't represent the communities that they serve," Cooper said. They represent a small part of the community, but they don't represent the fullness and the color and the vibrancy and the diversity that exists within so many of our communities across the country."