When Leaders Attack Mental Health and Healthcare, Women Pay the Price

Today’s episode is a call to awareness, a call to action—and above all, a call to compassion.

At Her Time Therapy, we practice from a feminist counseling lens, which means we don’t view mental health in a vacuum. Systems, policies, and power structures deeply shape our emotional lives, and right now, those structures are failing women—especially those who are most marginalized.

In this episode, we explore how political rhetoric and policy decisions—especially those under the Trump administration—have actively harmed women’s mental and physical health. From Medicaid cuts and mental health stigma to abortion bans and scientific censorship, we trace the throughline between harmful leadership and the rising emotional toll on women across the country.

We talk candidly about:

• How cuts to Medicaid and the ACA disproportionately impact women (KFF, 2020)
• The gutting of mental health programs and mocking of depression and anxiety
• Trump’s anti-science policies, including the CDC’s banned language list (Washington Post, 2017)
• The dismantling of abortion access and its consequences for maternal health (The Lancet, 2021; ACOG, 2023)
• The erasure of gendered and LGBTQ+ language in federally funded research
• Why seeking support is not just personal—it’s political

If you’ve ever felt ashamed for needing help, or enraged by the growing barriers to care, you are not alone. We see you. And we believe that caring for your mental health is an act of resistance.

Take Action:

• Share this episode with someone affected by healthcare rollbacks
• Visit Her Time Therapy to find a feminist-oriented therapist
• Register to vote and stay informed about your state’s policies
• Use the Five Calls App to contact your representatives
• Support this podcast for $3/month on Buzzsprout or join us on Patreon for bonus content and community

Referenced Sources:

• ACOG: Abortion Policy
• Brené Brown (2018). Braving the Wilderness. Random House.
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Kaiser Family Foundation – Medicaid & Mental Health
• NIH Women’s Health Research – Janine Clayton
• The Lancet (2021) – Maternal Mortality Review
• CDC Language Guidance Coverage – Washington Post & NYT
• Politico – Healthcare Reporting
• Rush Holt Statement – AAAS
• The Cardiology Advisor – Coverage Dispa

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This is your time. Your story matters. Your voice is powerful. And your mental health is worth prioriti

Episode Transcript

(00:28):
Today, we're diving into apowerful and painful truth.
When leaders attack mentalhealth and healthcare, women pay
the price.
Now, if you're surprised to heara therapist talk about politics,
I get it.
Mental health professionals areoften portrayed as neutral or
apolitical, at her time therapy,we practice from a feminist
counseling lens.

(00:50):
That means that we understandthat the personal is political
and mental health doesn't alwaysexist in a vacuum.
The systems, structures andpolicies we live under deeply
affect our wellbeing.
Feminist therapists don't justhelp clients survive these
systems.
We help them challenge them.
We support our clients infinding their voices, reclaiming

(01:10):
their power, and practicingactivism in a way that is
sustainable and authentic tothem.
And we do our best to model thatourselves by speaking up and
living our values, includingthrough this podcast.
This episode is a call toawareness, a call to action, and
above all, a call to compassion.
For yourself and for themillions of women navigating

(01:31):
mental health struggles as theywatch their access to healthcare
unravel.
We live in a time wherepolitical rhetoric is not just
talk.
It translates to policies thatshape our bodies, our minds, and
our lives.
For women, particularly thosewho are marginalized due to
race, class, disability, sexualorientation, or gender identity.

(01:52):
The political has always beenpersonal.
In recent months, we've seen adeeply concerning trend of
political leaders underminingthe legitimacy of mental health
struggles, mocking people whotake medication for depression
or anxiety, and really workingto dismantle the very systems
designed to help support thosein crisis.
For example, official statementsfrom Dr.

(02:14):
Eleanor McCann Kotz, the formerassistant secretary for mental
health and substance use.
The HHS confirm federal policyshifts that deprioritize mental
health funding and supportduring the Trump administration.
Furthermore, media coverage fromPolitico and the Washington Post
document these trends in detailas well.
So I wanna ask you listeners,have you ever felt ashamed of

(02:37):
needing help because of howsociety talks about mental
health?
One of the most visible examplesof this is President Trump,
whose administration repeatedlytargets healthcare programs,
reduces access to mental healthcare and normalizes harmful
narratives that stigmatizepeople seeking support.
His public mocking of those withdisabilities and who utilize

(02:59):
mental health services sends adangerous message and to men in
particular by promoting toxicmasculinity that equates
vulnerability with weakness andglorifying dominance as a sign
of strength.
When toxic masculinity isencouraged, it doesn't just harm
men.
It hurts everyone.
It leads to disproportionatelyhigh Suicide rates among men

(03:22):
increases intimate partnerviolence and domestic abuse, and
deepens the male lonelinessepidemic.
It separates men from theemotional connection that they
need as human beings, while alsomaking it harder for women and
marginalized communities to feelsafe around men who have been
conditioned to be domineering,dismissive, and emotionally

(03:42):
unavailable.
When those in power promote theidea that mental health
struggles are a weakness or asign of personal failure, it
directly contributes to fear,shame, and silence and silence
can be deadly.
Now let's take a moment to talkabout abortion access.
I.
The Trump administration'sefforts to eliminate it are not

(04:03):
pro-life.
They are anti-woman.
Stripping away a woman's rightto make decisions about her own
body is dehumanizing.
It removes bodily autonomy andreplaces it with government
control.
And the main outcome isn't thatmore women will joyfully choose
motherhood.
It's actually causing more womento die from pregnancy related

(04:25):
complications due to lack ofaccess to care.
In fact, the American College ofObstetricians and Gynecologists
states clearly that abortionbans are, quote, a dangerous
intrusion into the practice ofmedicine and they do nothing but
harm patients.
end quote.
Furthermore, a 2021 studypublished in The Lancet, which

(04:48):
is one of the longest standingand most prestigious medical
journals, found that maternalmortality rates increase in
states with the most restrictiveabortion bans.
these policies are not savinglives.
They're endangering them.
So if you've ever felt rage ordespair over these restrictions,
know that you are not alone, andthat rage and despair is not

(05:10):
unfounded.
True support for life meansensuring that every woman has
access to affordable,comprehensive healthcare across
their lifespan, especiallyduring pregnancy and the
postpartum period.
This means guaranteeing thingslike paid maternity and
paternity leave, accessible andaffordable childcare, high

(05:30):
quality preschool, and fundingfor women to pursue higher
education.
If the Trump administration weretruly pro-life and pro-women, it
would have championed policiesto improve their life, not to
restrict their choices.
But instead, we see theweaponization of moral ideology
and religion to justify neglect,harm, and political gain.

(05:55):
The Trump administration hasworked hard to cut Medicaid,
which is something that we haveto talk about here.
Again, Medicaid is a programthat provides healthcare to one
in five women in the US,including vital mental health
services.
These cuts are not abstract.
They mean fewer therapysessions, longer wait lists, and

(06:15):
many people getting no care atall.
According to a 2020 report fromthe Kaiser Family Foundation,
more than 60% of adult Medicaidenrollments with mental illness
are women.
That means that women,especially women in marginalized
communities, are being hit thehardest and are being hit at
disproportionate levels byMedicaid cuts.

(06:36):
So why is this happening?
Well, one thing that we reallyneed to look at here is the myth
of the bootstraps.
This is a tired, harmful beliefthat everyone should just be
able to pull themself up bytheir bootstraps, and that if
people simply worked harder,they wouldn't need public
assistance, and that healthcareis a privilege to be earned
rather than a human right.

(06:56):
But this isn't just outdatedthinking.
It's extremely dangerous.
During his first term, Trumptried to roll back Medicaid
expansion under the AffordableCare Act, a move that would've
left millions without coverage.
He also pushed for block grantsto cap funding and proposed work
requirements for Medicaidenrollees.
Now, think about this.

(07:17):
Who gets punished under thesetypes of roles and policies?
Those that get punished aredisproportionately women.
Women who are unpaid caregivers,disabled women, survivors of
abuse.
Women juggling unstable jobswithout benefits.
These requirements ignore thereality and punish the most
vulnerable among us.

(07:38):
Meanwhile, the Trumpadministration undermines mental
health parody laws by expandingaccess to short-term health
plans that don't require anycoverage in the realm of mental
health.
Many of these kind of plans thatTrump promotes excludes coverage
for antidepressants or therapyaltogether.
As Brene Brown has said, wedon't have to do it all alone,

(07:59):
we were never meant to.
At her time therapy, we seeevery day the emotional fallout
of broken systems.
Our clients are not failing.
They are fighting.
They're navigating trauma,grief, parenting, poverty and
pain in a society that tellsthem to hustle harder while
pulling the rug out from underthem.
If that sounds like yourexperience, please know that

(08:22):
support exists and we are herefor you.
Our therapists are here to helpand we understand exactly what
you're going through.
let's not forget, even beforethe Trump era, women's health
was vastly underfunded andunder-researched, but his
administration actively cutfunding for key women's health
research initiatives, includingthe ones focused on postpartum

(08:42):
depression, trauma, and chronicpain syndromes that
disproportionately affect women.
In 2019, the Trumpadministration disbanded the
Office of Women's HealthResearch at the CDC and reduced
funding for NIH projects focusedon gender disparities in health
outcomes.
These moves make it harder todevelop evidence-based
treatments that actually workfor women.

(09:05):
Dr.
Janice Clayton, director of theNIH, office of Research on
Women's Health, noted in apublic statement that failing to
fund research on women's mentalhealth keeps us decades behind
in our ability to diagnose andtreat the conditions that affect
half the population.
But it wasn't just about money.
The Trump administration alsoattempted to control the very

(09:25):
language that researchers coulduse.
In 2017, a policy shift widelycondemned by the scientific
community and the CDC wasreportedly directed to avoid
them using words such asdiversity, vulnerable
entitlement, transgender fetus,evidence-based and science-based
in official budget documents.

(09:46):
Other reports revealed pressureto also avoid terms like gender
feminine L-G-B-T-Q, advocacy andeven the word women.
And of course, in 2025, we haveseen a renewed effort in that
directive and there has beenmoves by the administration to
ban all of these words and morefrom any type of federally

(10:09):
funded research.
as Dr.
Rush Holt, former congressmanand CEO of the American
Association for the Advancementof Science said at the time, the
words that we use are areflection of the science that
we do.
If you were unable to talk aboutthe science, you were unable to
do it.
This kind of censorship is notjust political posturing.

(10:31):
It's a direct assault onscientific integrity, and it's
one that delays progress, hidestruth and causes real harm to
real people.
Nowhere is it more clear than inthe area of cancer research.
Anti-intellectualism, budgetcuts and the suppression of
scientific language have slowedcritical advancements in cancer

(10:51):
prevention and treatment.
Some cancers disproportionatelyaffect women, breast cancer,
ovarian cancer, and endometrialcancer.
These are not just statistics.
They're lived realities formillions of women and families.
Trump era policies have made itharder to fund, study, and speak
truthfully about the full scopeof these issues.

(11:12):
That's more than a bureaucraticfailure.
It's an insult to cancerpatients, their caregivers, and
researchers working towards acure.
At her time therapy, we supportwomen with cancer and their
caregivers.
Whether professional or informalcaregivers, this is one of our
specialty areas, so we knowfirsthand the trauma, anxiety,

(11:33):
and depression that shows upwhen people are facing the
uncertainty of a cancerdiagnosis or the grief of losing
someone too soon to thishorrible disease.
We also see how the erosion ofhealthcare access and scientific
support leaves clients feelingabandoned, angry, and afraid.
But please know that you're notalone and you're not invisible.

(11:54):
Your fight matters, and we arehere to walk you through it.
So here's the most importantthing that I want you to walk
away with today.
Seeking help for your mentalhealth is an active resistance.
It says I matter.
My needs matter.
My wellbeing matters even ifsociety tries to tell me
otherwise.
So whether you use insurance orpay out of pocket, whether you

(12:17):
go to a community clinic or seea therapist online, or you join
a support group, you are doingsomething powerful.
You are rejecting shame.
You're rejecting stigma, andyou're stepping into your own
healing.
If you're afraid to reach outbecause you are worried about
how you'll be judged or what itsays about you, please note
this, you are not alone.

(12:38):
Millions of women feel that samefear, but they're finding a way
through it, and you can too.
As Andre Lord said, caring formyself is not self-indulgence.
It's self-preservation, and thatis an act of political warfare.
If today's episode resonatedwith you, here's what you can do
next.

(12:59):
Share this episode with someoneimpacted by Healthcare
Rollbacks.
Visit her time therapy toconnect with a feminist oriented
therapist.
Register to vote and stayinformed about what's happening
in your state so you know whichcandidate to vote for or to vote
out of office.
Use the Five Calls app tocontact your elected officials
about issues that matter to you.

(13:20):
And lastly, please leave us areview and consider becoming a
subscriber for$3 a month onbuzzsprout, or join Patreon and
support the podcast in order togain access to exclusive content
and conversations with the herTime to Talk team.
Your support helps us keepputting out content that
empowers women to take charge oftheir mental health and to fight

(13:41):
for justice.