You could be in trouble. Those rules that target trans people could be used against you.
VA officials cite the president’s 30 January executive order titled
Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. The primary purpose of the executive order was to strip most government protections from transgender people. The VA has since ceased providing most gender-affirming care and forbidden a long list of words, including “gender affirming” and “transgender”, from clinical settings.
Maybe you thought that executive order was a fine thing. It was hurting trans people, but you aren’t trans, so no worries!
Unfortunately, you didn’t realize that removing civil rights protections from one group opens the door to removing rights from other groups. If you didn’t complain when trans people were criminalized, you don’t get to complain when the fascists pound on your door.
Language requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated.
Doctors and other medical staff can also be barred from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, documents reviewed by the Guardian show. The changes also affect chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.
Are you single? Are you a Democrat? Have you joined a union? Have you been the vicim of a crime?
They “seem to open the door to discrimination on the basis of anything that is not legally protected”, said Dr Kenneth Kizer, the VA’s top healthcare official during the Clinton administration. He said the changes open up the possibility that doctors could refuse to treat veterans based on their “reason for seeking care – including allegations of rape and sexual assault – current or past political party affiliation or political activity, and personal behavior such as alcohol or marijuana use”./p>
Have you forgotten that civil rights are supposed to protect everyone?
So far, this is only a hypothetical danger. But talk to your gay and trans friends — they’ll tell you how rapidly a hypothetical risk can become an immediate threat to your health and well-being.
Let us not forget the circumcised ones, of both religions. Obviously, members of self-mutilating groups are not worthy of health care.
Actually that quote starts out: “First they came for the communists.”
This would still seem to violate the legal principle of Equal Protection under the law.
This is part of the US Constitution as article 14.
I realize that the ruling powers right now don’t much care what the US constitution or law says.
But this is one more law they can break.
When they run out of people to blame, they eventually have to target their own. But MAGAs think that will never happen.
Marital status? Political Party Affiliation? Union sympathies?
The christofascists of the GOP just want to hate.
It really doesn’t matter who they hate as long as they have someone to hate.
They are digging deep here to find groups to hate.
There must be more.
Divorced people. If your spouse doesn’t want you, why should the Federal Employment Service?
Wear glasses? The Khmer Rouge killed people wearing glasses on the theory that they must have education and money.
College Degree? The GOP wants to dumb down the USA so the idiots will vote for them.
Ivy League College Degree? That was an expensive mistake. The GOP hates high end colleges. That Harvard degree is like those yellow stars the Nazis made the Jews wear.
Vaccinated? Your blood is tainted for life and no one wants it. Or you.
Have a cat? You might be a crazy cat lady even if you look like a male with two children.
Pregnancy? This was legal up until a few decades ago.
“The practice of firing pregnant women was significantly restricted with the passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) of 1978. ”
I’m sure they will find more reasons to discriminate and hate other people.
@2
Shhhhh… We can’t generate sympathy for them!
The purpose is to allow discrimination for any reason not explicitly coded in law.
Thus, you could run a Cafe that only serves dog owners. No Shirt. No Shoes. No Dog. No Service!
And, meanwhile, the Trump DOJ is busy dropping cases against deportees to El Salvador leaving the disappeared with no legal action against them, no representation – truly locked up and the key thrown away. As for the so-called “due process,” it is what the Administration says it is, whatever that is … at any given moment … whatever. The Rule of Whim.
I really don’t like how common it is for “First they came” to be misquoted.
It sometimes seems like pedantry, but it’s so widespread and SO persistent that it feels like actual propaganda.
I’m sorry if this seems off topic, but it really does matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came
I checked the claim with the Bubblebot:
—
Claim:
“New rules allow VA doctors to refuse to treat Democrats, unmarried veterans.”
Factual Background:
According to multiple reports, VA hospitals have revised their guidelines in the wake of an executive order from Donald Trump. The changes remove protections related to political affiliation, marital status, and other characteristics from the non-discrimination rules that were previously in place for VA staff. In practice, this means that—for now—the rules no longer explicitly prevent healthcare workers from declining treatment based on those personal characteristics. However, VA officials have described these changes as largely formal, insisting that all eligible veterans will still receive care .
Points of Analysis:
Policy Change vs. Practice:
The factual basis is that the guidelines have been modified. Still, whether these changes will translate into widespread, actual refusal of care remains unproven. Critics contend that removing these protections opens the door to discrimination, while the VA claims the modifications are “a formality.” The real-world impact may depend on local practices and oversight, which have not yet been systematically documented .
Political and Ethical Implications:
The headlines point to a politically charged issue, framing the policy as enabling discrimination against Democrats and unmarried veterans. This framing is heavily politicized. In reality, while the policy wording has changed, using it as a catch-all explanation for future discriminatory actions assumes that all staff will take advantage of the removal of these protections—a leap that is not necessarily supported by evidence or by surveys of individual behavior .
Communication and Clarity:
The claim’s wording is broad. Saying the new rules allow doctors to refuse treatment based on political affiliation and marital status implies an open license for discrimination, yet the actual documents and statements (e.g., from VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz) emphasize that all eligible veterans will continue to be served. The policy change is real, but its effects may be limited by other regulatory or ethical constraints within the healthcare environment.
Conclusion:
While the revised guidelines are factually in place and remove certain non-discrimination language, the claim as presented is imprecise and provocative. It leans on the fear that these changes will lead to systematic mistreatment of vulnerable veterans. At this point, the evidence shows a policy change that has raised concerns without yet proving that it translates into widespread, discriminatory practices. More detailed, on-the-ground research is required to definitively assess its impact.
This analysis aims to separate the documented guideline changes from the politically charged narrative in the headlines, avoiding ambiguity and imprecision.
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”
― H.L. Mencken
It’s a policy designed to get rid of anyone not personally loyal to Tangerine Palpatine.
The policy doesn’t explicitly take away benefits and protections to women, POC, LGBTQIA people, they just make it more elusive to get. Oh, you’re a woman and a rape survivor looking for medical care and assistance? Sure, but the local medical care in the field thinks you’re a whore who secretly wanted it, so they can refuse to treat you because the available medical providers have decided they don’t want to treat you. Sucks to be you! Why’d you sign up in the first place, knowing the risks?
Substitute “black/Asian/trans” or any other minority, and suddenly the people in those groups aren’t so interested in joining anymore, leaving only cishet white males in the military. Wait, you said you only joined for 3 hots and a cot, plus medical care, so you could finally get real dentistry for the first time in your life? Sucks to be you! Wait, you have dreams and ambitions of living a better life than the one you came up in? It’s back to the good old days fo the GI bill, where housing developments specifically designed for returning GIs were only sold to white men. Not female or black or Asian veterans.
The policy is both a method of winnowing out anyone who isn’t cishet male white and closing off one of the few remaining avenues of social and economic mobility for disadvantaged minorities. Noooo, we didn’t kick out minorities, they just left on their own. Yeah, it’s such a mystery as to why they left.