Boston-based Fenway Health has joined a broad coalition of health care providers, LGBTQIA+ advocacy groups, and patients as a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed today challenging the legality of a new rule published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that eliminates and undermines the protections against discrimination in healthcare, in particular on the basis of sex that are currently in place in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.
The lawsuit, BAGLY v. HHS, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Other plaintiffs are The Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth (BAGLY), Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, Campaign for Southern Equality, Equality California, The Transgender Emergency Fund, and Darren Lazor, 35, a transgender man who experienced numerous instances of discrimination in healthcare settings based on his gender identity from 2012 through 2017.
“It is unconscionable that the Trump Administration would purposefully make it harder for LGBTQIA+ people to access essential health care and health insurance,” said Fenway Health CEO Ellen LaPointe. “That they are doing so in the midst of a global COVID-19 pandemic that has already claimed the lives of more than 130,000 U.S. residents, put 14 million people out of work, and exacerbated significant racial and ethnic disparities in access to healthcare and health outcomes only serves to magnify the heartlessness of this unlawful action.”
Anti-LGBTQIA+ discrimination in health care is widespread, correlates with poorer health and well-being for LGBTQIA+ people, and makes LGBTQIA+ people less likely to access health care. Since 2011, the Joint Commission, a nonprofit organization that accredits hospitals and other health care organizations, has required sexual orientation and gender identity nondiscrimination policies in health care institutions as a criterion for accreditation.
“Fenway Health exists to advance the well-being of the LGBTQIA+ community and all people in our neighborhoods and beyond through access to the highest quality health care, education, research and advocacy,” LaPointe added. “We are compelled and proud to take a stand on behalf of some of the most marginalized and at-risk members of our community, advancing a core principle at the heart of our mission – that all people deserve access to care, and that LGBTQIA+ people are entitled to the same rights as all others in our society.”
Read the full press release from Fenway Health here.
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