The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday suggested a Trump administration proposal that would define someone’s sex at birth risked heightening stigma around transgender people.
The director, Robert Redfield, did not directly criticize the proposal. But when asked whether any such effort might hamper efforts to treat HIV, especially among transgender women, he replied: “We need to understand that stigmatizing illness, stigmatizing individuals is not in the interest of public health.”
He made the remarks in an interview with STAT Executive Editor Rick Berke at the opening session of the Milken Institute’s Future of Health Summit.
Redfield said he was not involved in developing the policy, which was first reported by the New York Times.
The proposal was criticized by scientists, who pointed out that it stands in contradiction to basic biology, which recognizes that many individuals are born with sex chromosomes or genitalia that don’t conform to the social definitions of “male” and “female.”