WEBVTT - Pride Month Special: How Biden Abandoned the Trans Community 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:08.560 Also media, Welcome to ikidefen here a podcast being recorded 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:11.640 something like nineteen hours into bargaining with managements, thus at 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:15.120 the peak of maximal derangements, and also about an hour 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.680 after former President Donald John Trump was convicted of thirty 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:22.360 four felon accounts of falsifying business records for his election. 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.599 Time payoff of Stormy Daniels. We can only hope that 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.080 this will bring voting race to the long suffering felons 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:30.400 of Florida, And realizing that kind of sounds like a joke, 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.159 it's actually not. It is in fact, really messed up 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.760 that you can just disenfranchise an entire class of people 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:40.080 and maybe the law hurting someone famous will do something good. Now, 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:42.479 that's all the time we have to talk about Trump 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.279 right now. If you want, if you want to hear 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.520 more about that, you can go to literally everyone who's 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:51.479 ever done any media related thing. Ever, however, we now 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:53.440 have to talk about the other candidate in the twenty 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:56.639 twenty four election, Joe Biden, which means, this is all 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:58.639 the fun you're getting for this episode. It is now 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.920 time for you to suffer and with me to talk 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.800 about suffering, and specifically the suffering of my well, I 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:09.040 was gonna say, my people, like one of my people's 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.800 question work, I don't know. Identity is complicated. Sometimes you're 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.319 more than one thing at a time. Is Karin Green, 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:18.200 who's part of a Southern transfem collective launching a very 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:20.400 long list of projects that you will be hearing you 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.000 out very shortly. She also used to be a work 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:25.679 on policy for the Equality Federation and for the Transientered 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:27.720 Law Center. Yeah, Karinn, welcome to the show. 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:31.240 Thank you so much, happy to be here, and yeah, 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:33.360 I'm excited to get the opportunity to kind of talk 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:35.800 about maybe what is behind some of the press releases 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.319 and the HRC list of accomplishments that gets hosted on 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.240 me all the time when I complain about lack of 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:43.560 action on trans policy. 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:46.560 You know, I really should have looked this up the forehead. 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.720 But I once one of my friends dragged me in 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.840 college to a queer movie screening that I went to 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:54.640 because I hadn't eaten all day and they had food, 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.760 but ended up being this this really great little kind 0:01:57.760 --> 0:01:59.880 of I think it's like an Indian movie thing that's 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:03.120 about this group of queers robbing stealing a blood diamond 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:07.840 from the from the HRC great movie ten out of ten. 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:09.080 I wish I remember what it was called. 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:11.320 In the movement at the time, we all joked that 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.040 HRC stood for peculiar ron of Glinton rather than because 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:16.240 of how the tank they were. 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:22.840 So yeah, So, as as the listener may may have guests, 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.639 we need to talk about Joe Biden's quite frankly, really 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.080 terrible record on trans writes. And to do that, we 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.080 need to talk a little bit about where the power 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:36.000 of the president comes from. Because, you know, the sort 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.239 of traditional liberal wonk theories of the president tend to 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:41.960 either focus on like this discursive effects of what the 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.040 president says, or like the president's ability to like negotiate 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.240 with Congress to get bills passed. But this largely is 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.680 not where the president's power comes from. The president's power 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.400 comes from I guess three things, two of which are 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:55.840 very similar. One is, you know, I mean just literally 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.280 the command of the military, right the president sense since 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.240 Barack Obama, although Bush was doing similar things, has claimed 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:04.359 the legal authority to kill any man, woman, or child 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.200 the moment they leave us or regardless of his citizenship status. 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:09.640 This is, this is the legal foundation of the drone 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.240 program and it is still in place to this day. 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:15.320 You know, the second one, I'm talking a lot about 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.400 Obama here because Obama weirdly established a lot of these 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.359 kind of legal frameworks. But you know, the second one 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:22.440 has to do with their ability to control the nation's 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.560 intelligence services. You know, I mean, one of the things 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:30.480 that Obama did was like personally coordinate the mess like 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.320 multi agency crackdown on occupy. And then the third thing, 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.360 and this is where really most of the power is 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:43.120 is through the unbelievably massive federal bureaucracy. So like I 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:45.840 do kind of get assessed to this and anytime you 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.240 hear the words the Department of that is the thing 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.120 the president has the ability to do shit with. That 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.880 is that is a very simplified version of it. But yeah, 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.560 you know, when you're dealing with an officeho's power is 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.320 largely bureaucratic. It means that if you want to figure 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:03.920 out what they're actually doing, you have to dig really 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:08.520 deep into the depths of the American bureaucracy. So okay, 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:12.640 let's let's let's do that. And yeah, first I want 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:19.320 to ask you about PPACA one five five seven, which 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:21.600 is a part of the the Affordable Care Act. Otherwise 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.080 is it still better known as Obamacare? Do the kidsacre? 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:26.400 Yeah? 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.360 They reclaimed it. I think the lips took it back 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:30.400 I had. 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:32.919 I've been having this realization that people don't remember Obama 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.440 era stuff. Is why I'm saying. Oh, like I said, 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:37.479 I started saying Ferguson to people and they had no 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:39.120 idea what I was talking about. And I was like, 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:42.400 oh no, we ventored the k we ventured the disaster era. 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.080 So yeah, can you can you talk about what that 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.919 is and what what what it sort of says about 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.159 what the Biden administration isn't isn't doing. 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:52.159 Yeah? 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:55.839 Absolutely so, as you mentioned, it's part of the Affordable 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.120 Care Act, and so Section fifteen fifty seven is the 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.559 regulatory implementation of the non discrimination. 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:03.440 Parts of the Affordable Care Act. 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.200 Back in the day when we were fighting to prevent 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.800 Trump from rolling back some fifteen fifty seven protections, we 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.800 actually are comf people came up with a much sexier 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.279 name than Section fifteen fifty seven, but it never took 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:19.480 off with any of the policy people. So I don't 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:23.720 even remember what I'm supposed to be calling it. I 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.760 never hear people say section fifteen fifty seven. What they're 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:31.039 referencing is basically the non discrimination part of the Affordable 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.479 Care Act. And so the Affordable Care Act, as people 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:37.800 have probably noticed by now, touches practically all of the 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:42.440 US healthcare system and has extended, especially through Medicaid expansion, 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.760 federal dollars into healthcare even more than they had been 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:52.080 previously with the supplants for insurance through Medicaid expansion and 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.719 those kinds of things, And so there's actually a lot 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:59.120 of control that the Department of Health or Health in 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:04.680 Human Services and associated other parts of bureaucracy like Center 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:09.279 for Medicaid, Medicare Services, those kinds of things have over implementation. 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.120 And so one of the ways of this works is 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:15.680 when legislators write a law, they don't go into all 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.599 the details. They just pass a law, right, And so 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.560 most times, especially at the federal level, after a law 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:24.240 has passed, the relevant agencies that are going to be 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:26.400 dealing with that part of the law work on and 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.440 issue rules or regulations. You might hear them called either thing, 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:32.880 but they mean the same thing, right. So it's basically 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.960 the additional agency policies and procedures that they issue through 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.400 the formal process governed by the Administrative Procedures Act. Very exciting. 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:42.919 I know this is going to be like just bombshell episode. 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.680 Terrible stuff is coming. Don't worry, you got a whold lot. 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:48.120 It's going to get really bad. 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:50.760 I'm giving you the foundation to make sure you can 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.880 get maximally angry along with me. And so they create 0:06:55.080 --> 0:07:00.520 the rest of the implementation of the laws at that Congress, right. 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.560 And so in this particular case, for section fifteen to 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.279 fifty seven, it deals specifically with non discrimination, So it 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:10.640 deals with race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, any equality can 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.040 you can you would typically find in federal non discrimination 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:18.640 laws actually in fifteen fifty seven. And so it's obviously 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.360 been kind of going back and forth as a political 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:25.080 football between the Obama administration and then the Trump administration, 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:27.520 and then I don't even know if I'm going to 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.840 give Biden credit for treating it as a football. And 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.440 so there's this regulatory process that has been going forward 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.680 and been rolled back and going forward and been rolled back. 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:42.640 And then simultaneously there are several I don't know the 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.600 current number, but several court cases over fifteen to fifty 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:48.960 seven from various era as like I think there's still 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.200 at least one case ongoing from the Obama era fifteen 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.120 fifty seven rag, there's some ongoing from the Trump rag. 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.000 And then obviously folks might have seen in the news 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:02.600 that states like mine Louisiana that have a governor and 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.240 attorney general super focused on raising their own profile have 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.320 already filed suit against the recently issued Biden era Section 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.560 fifteen fifty seven regulation, And so there is a lot 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.560 of fighting around trans people specifically. 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:18.200 Go figure. 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.800 It has been We've been hot right now for the 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.239 last four years or so. It's not been a super 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:27.440 exciting time, and it has actually impacted, if you know 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.840 how to read the policy tea leaves, it has actually 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.439 impacted what we have gotten out of the Biden administration 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:38.920 in terms of actual trans policy. And I've been doing 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.679 trans policy for a very long time, start at the 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.320 state level in Louisiana. You can't get paid to do 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.120 a queer policy in Louisiana. So I moved out to 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.120 Oakland to work for ternsit Or Law Center for a while, 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.000 and that was actually where I created the joint Protect 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.199 Trans Health campaign. It was actually the first ever coordinated 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:01.400 collaboration between the National Center for TANSU Quality and Transgeneral 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.920 Law Center, they had never formerly worked together on something before. 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.680 But for trans policy folks Section fifty and most of 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:13.920 the country, frankly, obviously, healthcare is like the thing right. 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:19.040 It's always been really terrible in this country, no matter what, 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:24.240 and so taking care of people's which should be a 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:29.760 right to access healthcare has been really really important. I 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.520 kind of considered it since twenty seventeen the most important 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.200 trans policy issue to work on. And so this is 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.280 definitely kind of to the sense that you are a 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:42.800 nerd like me and you have, you know, headline regulatory 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.920 actions that you're looking out for and hoping to influence 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.120 and doing things around. This is kind of the premiere 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:53.160 regulatory action in my opinion, in the trans policy space, 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.720 trying to what it should ideally do is safeguard and 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:02.280 guarantee trans people's access to healthcare, including gender affirming care. 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:06.280 It does not if you actually read the five hundred 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:08.920 and fifty eight page final Rule, but if you just 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.040 read like the press releases and the quotes that the 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.080 head of Human Rights Campaign give, you might have a 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:18.280 different understanding currently, and that's what I'm hoping we can 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.720 kind of get into today. 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.520 Yeah, and unfortunately before we get into that, we have 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.440 to do one of the other things that is required 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.439 of trans people, which is promoting capitalism if you want 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:36.320 to have a job. So here are some ads. God, 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.240 we're going to end up with like some kept paid 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.080 ad from Aluisi at our rep or something. 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.280 Oh, they don't even need they have a superjara that 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:45.280 they've been flex and muscle on. 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:45.920 They don't need to. 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:58.160 They're fine, And. 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.400 We are back with some cheaing. So yeah, let's talk 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.680 about what has been happening and what was actually in 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.840 the rules that no one who's not a bureaucrat or 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:11.080 a policy activist has actually read. 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.440 Yeah, so I think a little more background will will 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:17.079 help you get just as angry as I need you 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:21.720 to be, which is you know, So the administration is large. 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:22.720 There are a lot of people that work in the 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.480 executive branch, and a lot of them have, especially with 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:28.840 this administration, where a lot of folks actually did come 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:33.600 kind of directly from the Obama administration. They have relationships 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:37.800 with issue advocacy organizations. So most of the nationals, the 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:43.959 queer national organizations, advoccine nonprofits have relationships with executive branch folks, 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:49.080 and so when an executive branch agency like HHS is 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:53.760 working on a regulation that involves queer trans people the 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.120 way it worked in the Obama administration, there was actually 0:11:56.200 --> 0:12:00.280 very close collaboration between for example, the National Center Foratureer 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:05.000 Quality and the administration in the writing issuance of the 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:09.760 first Obama era fifteen to fifty seven productive regulation. And 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:14.319 so before the election and then during transition, the Biden 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:18.040 administration was obviously in contact back and forth with all 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.240 kinds of issue of se groups, not just the queer movement, 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:26.440 but everybody, and they made commitments to the queer movement 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:31.360 that you know, it would be a fairly smooth transition 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.200 to working with them like we had worked with the 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:40.120 Obama administration. If you think back a little while, that 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:44.760 was before the kind of current fascist humanization campaign had 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:48.240 really kicked off. And so these commitments were made kind 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:52.679 of in the Overton window from before the last four 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:54.840 years of hell or three years of how however you 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.720 want to time it. When they decided to come after 0:12:58.800 --> 0:12:59.960 trans people so hard. 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.480 This was back in the kind of housey in days. 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:04.120 I don't even know if people remember this right now, 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:05.800 but like it used to be a thing where democratic 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.680 like presidential candidates would attack each other for not being 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:11.640 radical enough on trans healthcare. That was the thing that 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.080 happened on the debate stage in like twenty nineteen. It 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.160 feels like seven lifetimes ago. 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:17.559 Now. 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.800 Yeah, And keep in mind that Biden, you know, every 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:24.080 six months he tweets that he has our back or whatever, 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.280 and then he's also called us the civil rights issue 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:32.479 of our time. So you know, there are some opportunities 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:36.480 to question that and see if he stacks up. And 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.000 my personal and professional opinion, this is what I do, 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.280 is that he absolutely doesn't right. And so one of 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.080 the things that you would really really want out of 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:49.400 a section fifteen to fifty seven regulation in a context 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:54.360 where states have been passing trans healthcare bands, is that 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.440 you would want a section fifteen fifty seven regulation that 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:01.680 deals with preventing transcrimination healthcare. You would want that to 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:08.920 strongly and efficiently preempt state bands against trans care as 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.800 violating a federal rule against non discrimination. And because these 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.520 things are you have to follow the Administrative Procedures Act 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.920 when you're issuing regulations as a federal agency, and most 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.400 states actually have the same a similar kind of process, 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.120 and so you kind of have to The agencies have 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.200 to show how they got to the final rule. So 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.760 they issue a draft rule, invite comment. There's a comment 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:37.720 period that you might have seen organizations asking you to 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.720 submit comments for before, and then they're actually required to 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.200 read and respond to all those comments. And so if 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:48.000 you actually pull up the fifteen fifty seven final rule, 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.600 it's actually one of it sounds like even wonkier than 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:53.440 for example, looking at a bill, But because of the 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.520 Administrative Procedures Act in the way they have to respond 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.600 to comments, there's actually a lot more kind of conversational 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.480 pro are not conversational, but you know, regular ask pros 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.640 and not terrifying legal language in this stuff. That is 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:11.200 them directly addressing comments people organizations have made and explaining 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.760 their reason. And so one of the things that I 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.920 think is most kind of emblematic of how we've been 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:22.120 failed and thrown under the bus is because of this 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:23.680 process where they have to kind of show you how 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.800 the sausage is made. You can look up in this 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:31.840 regulation and see that for some initial conduct, we were 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:33.880 promised this would come out year one, and then we 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:35.560 were promised it would come out year two and then 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:37.760 year three, and then I have actually heard that they 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:41.480 were trying to push it past the election, and we 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.000 kind of forced their hand on it. So you can 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.520 tell that they initially wrote the first draft in this 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:53.760 regulation to kill healthcare bands, to federally preempt healthcare bands. 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.760 There's actually I did a Twitter thread on this about 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:01.680 how one sentence that was that existed in the draft 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.520 version of the fifteen to fifty seven role that one 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.640 sentence alone could take down. I think the one I 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:12.200 used for an example was Arkansas's trans healthcare band or 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:16.320 Missouri's actually potentially, because what that sentence did is it 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:21.360 laid out very very clearly that a determination that trans 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.960 healthcare is never helpful or useful and can never be 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:33.200 provided does not meet the bar for considered medical reasoning, right, 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.080 and so states just can't do it. And that's fantastic 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:41.080 because that is functionally what these healthcare bands do, right, 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.400 and many of them, I think the one I used 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:45.920 as an example even actually have include in the non 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.160 effective text kind of the whereas preamble section of their bands. 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.960 They can't help themselves. They go into all this flowery 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.880 language about how trans care is never good and it's 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.040 always harmful in all this stuff right in garbage. And 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:02.600 this sentence spoke directly to those trans healthcare bands, and 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:07.520 it made a firm commitment to address them as a 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.560 whole as they were happening right at the federal government 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:16.359 to state level. And if you read the final rule, 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:20.439 you will get to see them strike that sentence out 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:25.800 and read their reasoning for striking that out. And so 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.280 you actually had this language that was very clear and 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:32.560 very strong, written very relatively early on in his term, 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.280 when at the time there were only a handful of 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:40.280 trans healthcare bands that had passed, right, and so it 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:45.040 didn't And so now I'm just offering conjectures and form conjecture, 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:46.920 conjecture informed by reading. 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:47.600 Policy te leaves. 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:51.960 But it is my suspicion that at that time, because 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:56.160 there weren't that many trans healthcare bands to preempt, they 0:17:56.240 --> 0:18:00.639 were more than willing to maintain, you know, to fulfill 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:02.280 their commitment to us and to issue the kind of 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:06.120 regulation that we had talked about. But as time went 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:10.600 on and the fascist humanization campaign started and ramped up, 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:15.120 and healthcare bands rapidly spread throughout the country. I've been 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.680 doing this for a decade and I've never seen anything 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.520 like this in any area of policy before, all of 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:25.240 a sudden, if you're holding a card that nuke's health 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.800 state healthcare bans, when you wrote it, that card was 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:32.160 only going to nuke a few two or three trans 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.199 healthcare bands, right, And if you're the federal government, you 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:38.680 know you can expect to steamrolls and just a handful 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:43.280 of states like that. But then later on, at this point, 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.439 I forget the exact number, but it's something like twenty 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.679 twenty to twenty three states have healthcare bans implemented. 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.760 And now if. 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:54.680 You're holding a card that nuke's healthcare bands, you don't 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.439 really get to pick and choose which healthcare bands you're 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.960 going to. Now you're going to you have to commit. 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:01.879 It's a new goal of them if you play that card. 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:05.639 And that just was not something that they seemed willing 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.719 to do when it was going to make the waves 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.080 that it would make with twenty to twenty three or 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.920 whatever states being pretting empted and required to make sure 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:15.680 that trans people have. 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:16.360 Health care access. 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.000 And keep in mind that during this period, not just 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.560 did more states past these healthcare bands, but the kind 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:28.240 of national discussion and focus on trans people deteriorated horrifically, right, 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.840 And so not only were the stakes higher in terms 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:36.959 of the kind of policy confidence in projecting your politics, 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:43.480 but also there was just I assume those lanyards run 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.600 horrible polls all the time, right, and saw that we 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.480 were losing points in terms of how the public views 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:52.399 transpeople because there's a lot of money being poured into this, 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:59.000 and just made the horrible unethical and moral calculations that 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:03.439 Democrats make, decided that trans people weren't worth it. And 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.200 so you can see them cross that strike that part 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:08.879 out of the final fifteen to fifty seven rule, and 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:13.240 it no longer contains any language even approaching that that 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:18.000 is written to address states as a whole, and it 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.639 is mostly what is in there at this point is 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:22.280 the same thing that they've been telling us to do 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:26.119 for the last over a decade, which is individual trans 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:29.919 people who just happen to encounter discrimination and healthcare you 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:34.680 to submit an OCR complaint, an HHSOCR complaint. OCR stands 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.119 for Office Civil Rights, So you would think an Office 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:41.159 of Civil Rights could maybe be proactive. And notice that 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.159 a state that has banned trans healthcare and some places 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:48.080 even criminalized it might be ready for some enforcement, some 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:52.639 broad enforcement. And yet they have maintained in this final 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:56.399 rule that they expect individual trans people to file individual 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.720 OCR complaints every time and that they will address each 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:03.159 one on a case by case basis. They reiterate this 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.719 at least a dozen times. It is one of the 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:08.840 most offensive parts of all this, right because that's the 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:13.200 only thing that aj just has ever told us about this, Yeah. 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:17.320 Which is just nuts, Like that's not an actual systemic 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.840 way of addressing this. Can you imagine if they had 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.399 done this with like literally any other kind of civil 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.280 rights issue, like you know, okay, we get we get 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:29.240 we get a state banned on gay marriage, and the 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.440 Department is like, yeah, you have to submit a complaint 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:37.800 to us individually. Like that's absolutely nuts, or are you or. 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:40.680 Of like states were banned insulin or something, you know, right, 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:45.520 like any other facet of healthcare, Just nobody would take that. Yeah, 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:48.119 everyone to expect, Yes, the federal government will come in 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.720 to make sure that people in Louisiana can still access insulin. 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:54.600 Yeah, and in staid, you have this just you know, 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:59.159 I mean a complete abrogation of any like not just 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:03.359 any responsibility, but I mean any attempt to actually not 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.080 even like any attempt to do anything to stop any 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:09.320 of these bands that are going to kill a like 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:11.760 not insignificant number of people like me. 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.040 Yeah, And one of the things I'd like to quins 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:18.640 is one of the benefits of you know, the photogram 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:20.840 having to follow the Administrative Procedures Act is they have 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.040 to talk about the previous rules in this space, and 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:27.320 so you also get really, I was gonna say funny, 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:32.040 but they're not funny. They're they're deeply depressing paragraphs about 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:36.400 how their final rule is worse than Obama's final rule. 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:38.680 Right they have and they have to explain it. And 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:40.720 one of one of the things that I'll reference here 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:44.399