And 2017 Starts Off Just As Bad

I know we're still in 2017 can't be as bad as 2016 mode, but let's put that to bed. January is only the beginning of "much worse" in America and the suffering will strike most at those least able to resist it.

A federal judge in Texas on Saturday issued a nationwide injunction halting enforcement of Obama administration protections for transgender and abortion-related healthcare services just one day before they were due to go into effect.

The lawsuit — brought by Texas, a handful of other states, and some religiously affiliated nonprofit medical groups — challenges a regulation implementing the sex nondiscrimination requirement found in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation “forbids discriminating on the basis of ‘gender identity’ and ‘termination of pregnancy’” under Obamacare, as US District Court Judge Reed O’Connor wrote in his opinion halting enforcement of those provisions in the rule.

Explaining the lawsuit, O’Connor wrote, “Plaintiffs claim the Rule’s interpretation of sex discrimination pressures doctors to deliver healthcare in a manner that violates their religious freedom and thwarts their independent medical judgment and will require burdensome changes to their health insurance plans on January 1, 2017.”

The states and nonprofits in the healthcare lawsuit allege that the regulation violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) — which sets the rules for federal government rule-making — and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

O’Connor found that the plaintiffs had standing to bring the lawsuit because they “have presented concrete evidence to support their fears that they will be subject to enforcement under the Rule.”

Spokespersons from the Justice and Health and Human Services departments did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The next steps from the administration could include seeking to appeal the injunction or asking O’Connor to limit his order to the plaintiffs in the case, although it was not clear — with 20 days left in the Obama administration — what the government would choose to do.

In other words, trans folks can't be allowed to exist because it pisses off imaginary sky dude.  If this sounds insane, understand that we have laws that are broadly used to allow discrimination against trans folks because not discriminating against them violates "religious freedom"  What would have been a solid Supreme Court showdown with a Clinton-appointed justice to replace Scalia is now almost certainly going to end in federal law demanding that people be given special dispensation to deny housing, employment, good and services, and pretty much anything else to LGBTQ folks in America, and that's probably going to happen within the next couple of years.

In other words, all those state protections in places like California and New York and other blue states are likely going to be stripped, including, I would think, a challenge to Obergfell and same-sex marriage on RFRA grounds.  It will be the same avenue used to end legal abortion services in the US as well.

Expect this, and be ready to fight it.