{"id":214567,"date":"2025-09-10T04:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T04:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/214567\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T04:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T04:12:09","slug":"sts-program-hosts-health-care-and-civil-liberties-lecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/214567\/","title":{"rendered":"STS program hosts health care and civil liberties lecture\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even with federal health care policies in flux<\/a> under President Donald Trump\u2019s administration, the Affordable Care Act\u2019s<\/a> accessible treatment protections remain in place. For doctors, administrators and patients, the challenge lies in how to put those rights into practice inside hospitals.<\/p>\n

Anna Kirkland, professor of women\u2019s and gender studies, discussed how civil rights are upheld in health care settings in a lecture Monday evening. The event, hosted in Tisch Hall by the University of Michigan\u2019s Science, Technology, and Society Program<\/a>, was the first in a series of lectures organized by Joy Rohde, public policy and history professor, and Cara Rock-Singer, assistant professor of Judaic studies.<\/p>\n

Kirkland drew from her newly published book, \u201cHealth Care Civil Rights: How Discrimination Law Fails Patients<\/a>.\u201d Kirkland began by situating her research in the broader context of ongoing health inequities, specifically for transgender people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe care a lot, supposedly, about the fact that minoritized people have poor health, or what we call health disparities,\u201d Kirkland said. \u201cPeople report a lot of really unpleasant experiences when they seek health care. My focus in the book is gender identity discrimination and how trans and nonbinary folks experience it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirkland said many small but significant interactions in a hospital provide opportunities for staff to recognize a patient\u2019s identity. From the way a receptionist greets someone at the front desk to the information recorded in a medical chart, each step presents a chance for either inclusion or erasure. According to Kirkland, these moments add up to shape patients\u2019 experiences of care.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink about all the things in a hospital where your gender, gender identity, body and organs need to be \u2026 recognized, properly greeted, properly seen, properly treated,\u201d Kirkland said. \u201cWhen I saw that the ACA was going to tackle this problem, I knew this was going to be complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although health care for trans people has been challenged<\/a> under President Donald Trump\u2019s administration, including gender-affirming care for minors<\/a>, Kirkland said key protections under the ACA remain in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Affordable Care Act hasn\u2019t been repealed,\u201d Kirkland said. \u201cJudges can interpret it, and they have. So even though a lot of things are shifting quickly, this law is still okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of Kirkland\u2019s talk focused on the logistics of implementing civil rights protections in hospitals. She explained a requirement<\/a> under former President Barack Obama\u2019s administration to document sexual orientation and gender identity in electronic medical records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe organ inventory tells the staff what organs a person has and also what their identity is and how they should be addressed,\u201d Kirkland said. \u201cThis is the medical system attempting to fully capture sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, to do civil rights justice to a patient.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the lecture, Kirkland opened the floor to questions. One attendee asked what institutional differences made some hospitals more eager to adopt non-discrimination policies than others. Kirkland said larger hospitals tended to be more involved and proactive in creating project teams to work on the policies, while other hospitals might assume the policies aren\u2019t necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201c(At one hospital there) could be a dozen people in a room with the project manager working on this for months at a committed place, and then other places (could say), \u2018Oh, we\u2019re already doing that already,\u2019 or \u2018Oh, it\u2019s not in my binder,\u2019\u201d Kirkland said.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Rackham student Amina Abdu, who attended the event, said she was concerned by the potential for the ACA to be distorted.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething that really stood out to me was that the level of flexibility in policy leaves a lot up to actors who are not always in the best position to actually protect our civil rights,\u201d Abdu said. \u201cSo often the government is abdicating responsibility by leaving things open to interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Daily, LSA junior Maggie Christoffersen said the talk highlighted the uneven application of civil rights in health care.<\/p>\n

\u201cHealth care is definitely changing,\u201d said Christoffersen. \u201cIt\u2019s not set up to provide everybody with the rights it should, and those rights are seen differently, like abortion rights or the right for trans patients to receive care, because it\u2019s so subjective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daily Staff Reporter Hayley Weiss can be reached at hayweiss@umich.edu.<\/p>\n

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