Physicians push back on Trump plans to redefine gender

The American Medical Association (AMA) is pushing back against a potential new policy from the Trump administration that could eliminate federal protections for transgender individuals.

The country’s largest physician lobbying group said Tuesday during its interim meeting that it will “oppose efforts to deny an individual’s right to determine their stated sex marker or gender identity.”

{mosads}AMA’s stance comes just weeks after a news report that the Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to narrowly redefine sex as “a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth.”

If enacted, the policy would erase federal protections for an estimated 1.4 million Americans who identify themselves as a gender other than the one they were born into.

“It is essential to acknowledge that an individual’s gender identity may not align with the sex assigned to them at birth,” AMA board member William E. Kobler said in a statement. “A narrow limit on the definition of sex would have public health consequences for the transgender population and individuals born with differences in sexual differentiation, also known as intersex traits.”

The Trump administration has sought to bar transgender people from serving in the military and has legally challenged the civil rights protections for the group that were codified in ObamaCare.

The medical community, including the AMA, recognizes a distinction between sex and gender and has called for legal protections for the gender non-conforming community.

AMA previously passed a resolution saying there was no “medically valid reason” for the administration to ban transgender soldiers.