RAFFI FREEDMAN-GURSPAN (NATIONAL CENTER FOR TRANSGENDER EQUALITY): This is just an abomination. There are decades of case law, medical community understanding about transgender people and actually society supporting transgender people for who we are. This just flies in the face of conventional wisdom and is really an attack on a small minority of people who just want to be respected and protected by the rule of law jaw like everyone else in this country.
HALLIE JACKSON (HOST): HHS [Department of Health and Human Services], a spokesperson tells NBC News, “We don't comment on alleged leaked documents.” Roger Servino at the Office of Civil Rights at HHS talks about how “a federal court has blocked a rule on gender identity and termination of pregnancy as contrary to law and infringing the rights of health care providers across the country. The court order remains in full force and in effect today and HHS is abiding by it as we continue to review the issue.” All of that to say, is there is a possibility that this may never come to fruition and this is just fanning the flames, ahead of the midterms, of a culture war?
FREEDMAN-GURSPAN: It could be, but we know from the past year is that transgender people have been targets of this administration -- from the transgender military ban, from the Department of Education saying that they are not going to protect transgender students when it comes to civil rights complaints. And we know just from the rhetoric that's out there that they do not want to protect or affirm transgender people. Again, we're about 2 million people in this country. We're not terribly large, but we are very, very concerned.
...
FREEDMAN-GURSPAN: [Trump] has not protected us, does not think about LGBTQ issues. There is no LGBTQ liaison. Programs that our former administration -- the Obama administration pushed forward to support the LGBTQ community have been totally eviscerated. There is no support for the LGBTQ community, and particularly for the transgender community, and that is why we won't be erased. We are standing up. We're holding a rally today in front of the White House at noon where we’re going to say loud and clear to this administration that we are going nowhere. The LGBTQ community is celebrating 50 years next year from Stonewall. We have got a long history. We are going to get through this.
