Tiny Useful Fact #3
Seizing private healthcare data of trans youth threatens all of us, not just trans youth.
This fact is especially for allies and outsiders to the trans community. Please spread it far and wide, and as ever, thank you for reading!
As an ally, and thank you for being an ally, you probably know Trump’s DOJ is trying to seize the private health data of trans youth, including sensitive identifying information. Hospitals are fighting Trump’s DOJ subpoenas—mostly because families of trans kids under 19 are loudly, publicly demanding they keep our kids’ data private.
You probably also know that trans youth may delay or avoid seeking the care they need when they don’t trust that their health data will stay private, and that lack of care correlates with severe depression and suicide among trans youth.
But what you might not know, as an ally, brings us to Tiny Useful Fact #3 in our series:
Seizing private health care data of trans youth threatens all of us.
It’s not unreasonable for an outsider to think: seizing private health data might be bad for trans people, but...it’s not my fight. The government isn’t interested in my—knee replacement, diabetes, menopause, etc.
But that’s wrong.
Trans people are a tiny percentage of the population. The government isn’t spending billions on its anti-trans crusade, including seizing sensitive private health data, for the moral high ground, or because it has a genuine interest in people. It’s for profit.
How it works
If the current administration convinces people that trans kids don’t deserve to keep their health data private, they can argue that no one deserves to keep their health data private.
Poised to cash in on that argument are tech companies such as Palantir, based in Denver. Palantir already has big contracts with the CIA, FBI, Internal Revenue Service, Defense Dept., Health and Human Services Dept., and more agencies. (Former Palantir employees are sprinkled throughout the Trump administration).
Palantir aggregates our data—from our internet footprints—and uses AI to draw conclusions about us. Then it creates software that lets companies and federal agencies act on that data.
“Denial management”
What does act on that data look like? Palantir already builds “denial management” systems for insurance companies and for-profit hospitals. The purpose of which is to maximize denials of coverage. Now, imagine what happens when Palantir gains access to our private health care data and flows it between defense and health agencies. Keep in mind the core responsibility of Health and Human Services (HHS) is controlling access to Medicare and Medicaid.
A Palantir executive says: “if you’re involved with bad behavior,” you deserve a consequence: denial of care, maybe prosecution. And who gets to determine what “bad behavior” is? Any government official, at their whim. Right now, for instance, “bad behavior” is doctors treating trans patients using long accepted standards of care, or being the parent of a trans kid who receives that care.
Soon, “bad behavior” could be buying Plan B at Walgreens, bulk buying ice cream or Doritos if you have diagnosed diabetes, or anything anyone in government thinks it should be, especially if that official stands to profit off your behavior.
Drop the fact into a conversation.
Your cousin, barber, or dog groomer says: “I’m not saying it’s right to hand over the private health info of trans kids to the government, but that’s also not my problem, I have my own problems.”
You say: “I also thought it didn’t personally affect me if the government seized the private health data of trans kids. But then I learned the goal is to convince us that no one deserves to have their health data private. If that happens, it would be easy for the government to use my private data to deny me care or bounce someone in my family off Medicare.”
It might not sway your barber to accept trans people. But it could open their eyes to the fact that if we give up trans kids’ data, our data is next.
Gender Defiant
