Los Angeles Times columnist notes California forgot transgender people in its vaccine equity push

Back in December, CBS News reported that a CDC panel had recommended that frontline essential workers, such as those who work in education, be first in line for the COVID-19 vaccine, followed by those over 65. A University of Pennsylvania professor agreed, observing that “older populations are whiter.” “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit,” he argued. And thus was born vaccine “equity.”

When it comes to prioritizing who gets the COVID-19 vaccine, we’d put the elderly first, as they’re at the greatest risk of dying from the virus. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis thought the same thing, but that had him accused of giving the vaccine to Republican voters first — Stephen King thought it was likely that DeSantis was putting rich, Republican-leaning communities at the front of the line. On the other hand, Gov. Andrew Cuomo decided recovering addicts in rehab facilities should be next in line for the vaccine. Inmates at Guantanamo Bay were right up there too.

Now we have a columnist for the Los Angeles Times arguing that California’s effort to distribute the vaccine equitably considered race and income, but overlooked the transgender community.

From the L.A. Times
Column: California rushed to vaccinate poor people. But what about transgender people?https://t.co/OKtUDi8M45

— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) April 1, 2021

Erika D. Smith writes:

Meanwhile, California, like most states, has focused most of its vaccine equity efforts on closing income, race and ethnicity gaps, with scant attention paid to sexual orientation or gender identity.

Transgender people, in particular, tend to get missed because they criss-cross multiple demographics, and therefore their particular brand of vaccine hesitancy isn’t getting addressed. This is especially true among Black and Latino trans people, such as Sasha Morehead, who doesn’t want to get vaccinated because she believes “they are just testing it on people.”

Not that it was ever really an esteemed source of journalism by any means, but this past year the LA times just lost it and went nutzo. It's like the entire editorial board just gave up and let the wokesters take over. Sad, but I had to undo my subscription. Garbage journalism

— J of Nazerith (@JNazerith) April 1, 2021

Let's vaccinate people based on their medical risk and not their sexual preferences.

It's stupid this even needs to be said.

— Yep (@bazzardhigh) April 1, 2021

Equity will be the downfall of society.

— Not Bo Jackson. (@boknowsdiddly) April 2, 2021

They were so clever swapping in “equity” for “equality” that we didn’t even notice them doing it.

Related:

Rep. Ayanna Pressley takes the COVID-19 vaccine despite the medical community ‘exacting ostensibly medical apartheid on black Americans’ https://t.co/LlJzeQgzjt

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) December 22, 2020