Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has expressed opposition to gender-affirming well being look after transgender minors and questioned proof linking HIV to AIDS, two points that critics say ought to give senators second ideas about confirming him as Well being and Human Companies secretary.
Whereas Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism has obtained extra consideration, his remarks on LGBTQ points, together with feedback throughout a podcast final 12 months that chemical compounds in consuming water could possibly be making kids homosexual or transgender, have additionally raised critical alarms.
“RFK Jr.’s historical past of denying primary scientific fact, from the reason for AIDS to the legitimacy of transgender well being care, they symbolize a grave menace to the well being and well-being of the LGBTQ+ group, and he’s poised now for one of the crucial highly effective and consequential positions in shaping the nation’s well being care and public well being insurance policies. On this context, disinformation is not simply dangerous, it’s lethal,” mentioned Alex Sheldon, government director of GLMA, an affiliation of LGBTQ well being care professionals.
Trump has mentioned he plans to let Kennedy “go wild on well being,” unnerving some LGBTQ well being care suppliers and researchers, given Kennedy’s previous statements and coverage proposals.
In December, Kennedy informed the conservative political commentator Patrick Wager-David that transgender minors shouldn’t be capable of entry drugs like puberty blockers and hormones “with out permission,” however fell wanting opposing gender-affirming care altogether or endorsing federal restrictions.
By Might, nevertheless, Kennedy’s place had change into extra conservative. He wrote on the social platform X that whereas people identified with gender dysphoria “deserve compassion and respect,” he’d change into “troubled” by the concept of giving puberty blockers to minors, labeling them as “repurposed castration medication.” He additionally referred to transition-related surgical procedure as “mutilation” and mentioned such therapies needs to be postponed till maturity.
Main skilled medical organizations say gender-affirming well being look after transgender adults and minors is medically essential and may be lifesaving — a number of research hyperlink puberty blockers and hormone substitute remedy to decrease charges of suicidality in transgender adolescents.
Surgical procedures are usually not usually really useful for trans youths below 18, based on the World Skilled Affiliation for Transgender Well being, and the one type of gender-affirming care for youngsters earlier than puberty is social assist, reminiscent of permitting a baby to decide on clothes, hairstyles or a reputation that extra intently aligns with their gender id.
“[Kennedy’s] feedback on transgender well being care, in quite a lot of methods, replicate a confusion that may be very widespread proper now amongst lots of people in U.S. society who don’t know what it means to be transgender, and the way deep and long-standing each the proof and scientific follow on this matter are,” mentioned Kellan Baker, government director of Whitman-Walker Well being, a Washington-based nonprofit centered on LGBTQ well being care.
Kennedy’s skepticism of established medical and scientific consensus extends to areas outdoors LGBTQ well being. He has a protracted document of selling deceptive claims about vaccines and not too long ago known as for water techniques to take away fluoride from public consuming water, hailed as one of many best public well being achievements of the twentieth century.
“Having a person with a transparent ideological bent on well being care goes to make everybody unhealthy,” mentioned Dr. Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale College of Medication. “The harm achieved by the metastasis of scientific disinformation will land most squarely on children — children who want vaccines, children who want gender-affirming care.
“With the megaphone that he can have and the false legitimacy that this appointment would give him, I’m deeply involved that folks will change into much more steeped in misinformation, and much more swayed by the outlandish issues that he says,” mentioned McNamara, a co-founder of Yale Regulation College’s Integrity Undertaking, which disseminates scientific and authorized information in assist of LGBTQ youth.
Kennedy’s suspicion over whether or not HIV causes AIDS — he’s urged the get together drug poppers may be the actual offender — has additionally involved public well being specialists. In his 2021 guide “The Actual Anthony Fauci,” Kennedy claimed that Fauci, who led the response towards the HIV epidemic within the Nineteen Eighties, had sabotaged efficient therapies for AIDS.
“HIV prevention and care analysis has been extremely essential for our communities — it is stored tens of millions of individuals alive all over the world,” mentioned Sean Cahill, director of well being coverage analysis on the Fenway Institute in Boston. However “there’s nonetheless quite a lot of work to do when it comes to HIV prevention and HIV therapy, and the concept he is questioning whether or not HIV causes AIDS may be very perplexing.”
Kennedy has additionally mentioned he intends to shake up the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, a division of HHS that features the Workplace of AIDS Analysis, by firing 600 federal workers, a transfer that threatens to stymie medical advances in treating the illness. As head of HHS, Kennedy would additionally assist oversee the President’s Plan for Emergency AIDS Reduction (PEPFAR), a program first approved in 2004 that gives HIV prevention and therapy in additional than 50 international locations.
Past Kennedy, physicians and public well being specialists mentioned insurance policies proposed by the president-elect and the incoming administration would drastically reshape the well being care panorama for LGBTQ Individuals, not essentially for the higher. The agenda on Trump’s web site says he plans to reverse Biden-era insurance policies and steerage supporting gender-affirming well being look after transgender minors and signal an government order instructing federal companies to stop packages “that promote the idea of intercourse and gender transition at any age.”
The agenda additionally guarantees to declare that any hospital or clinician who offers gender-affirming care to minors would “now not meet federal well being and security requirements for Medicaid and Medicare — and might be terminated from this system instantly.” Slicing federal funding to hospitals, lots of which depend on authorities cash to stay operational, would disrupt well being care for everybody, not simply trans folks, mentioned McNamara, of Yale Medical College.
“It’s unimaginable to discriminate towards a single group of individuals with out hurting everybody else, and bans, restrictions and threats that concentrate on evidence-based well being care will present us that over time,” she mentioned.
It’s anticipated that Kennedy, a detailed Trump ally, will honor the expectations of the president-elect, that means HHS guidelines increasing entry to gender-affirming care and prohibiting sexual orientation and gender id discrimination in well being care settings will seemingly be on the chopping block within the subsequent administration. A rule finalized by the division in April strengthening protections for LGBTQ foster youth is also focused.
The federal rulemaking course of is commonly prolonged, and it might take a number of years to utterly reverse and change guidelines instituted by the Biden administration. However hospitals and clinicians that present gender-affirming care, anticipating the administration’s actions, are more likely to reply effectively earlier than the brand new guidelines are finalized, mentioned one doctor in Massachusetts, who requested their identify not be revealed due to security and privateness issues.
“There will certainly be well being care techniques which might be proactively looking for to reduce their threat of retribution by the Trump administration. So, meaning, even earlier than guidelines go into impact, well being care techniques will roll again entry to care and can roll again analysis infrastructures round this,” the doctor mentioned. “Their aim is to make use of federal constructions to remove this care and silence researchers.”
Baker, of Whitman-Walker Well being, mentioned he’s hopeful that profession scientists and well being care specialists at HHS, a sweeping company that employs greater than 80,000 federal workers throughout the U.S. and all over the world, will assist rein in a few of Kennedy and the Trump administration’s proposals.
“There’s quite a lot of concern that completely different components of the administration’s agenda might be pushed by issues apart from science,” he mentioned. “On the identical time, we’re all hoping that the realities of operating a federal company like HHS will encourage the Secretary and the whole administration to depend on the individuals who know that science the most effective.”
