On January 28th, 2025, an executive order was issued that effectively banned gender–affirming care for people under the age of 19 years old in this country, including surgical treatments, hormone therapy, and puberty blockers. According to the order, the penalty for refusing to conform to these new guidelines would be that clinics and hospitals would have their federal funding suspended. The order “justified” these actions by calling into question the legitimacy of the scientific evidence supporting gender–affirming care. This could not be further from the truth. Gender–affirming therapies are evidence-based, and the data are unequivocally clear: gender–affirming care saves lives.
We at Students for a National Health Program (SNaHP) would like to directly state our support of gender–affirming care as a fundamentally sound, core part of medical care. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has demonstrated how gender–affirming care reduces suicide and self-harm in trans communities, and WPATH’s standards of care have been a scientifically rigorous cornerstone of treatment for nearly 50 years. Furthermore, these same treatments used for gender–affirming care have been safely and effectively used for cis patients without controversy, overlapping with the disciplines of reproductive medicine, pediatric oncology, and endocrinology. Puberty-blocking agents have been standard practice for treating precocious puberty in cis children for decades, adjusting hormone levels is a standard part of fertility medicine, and nearly all gender–affirming surgeries performed in the US on minors are done on cis patients. Targeting trans youth is therefore both logically inconsistent and shamefully cruel. This is established medical science, and is supported by numerous healthcare providers and organizations, including The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, The Pediatric Endocrine Society, The American Psychiatric Association, and many others.
Healthcare decisions are personal choices made through shared decision-making with patients and their healthcare providers, and such rights are not to be infringed on by the government. Bodily autonomy is the inviolable truth on which all medical ethics is built – the concept that people have the right to understand their bodies and make informed decisions about their bodies. To allow one subset of our patients to be victimized puts every patient in jeopardy. Therefore, we have a responsibility to our patients and a commitment to science that demands we stand up for gender–affirming care in our clinics, hospitals, and courthouses. We are making progress! At least 15 attorney generals have publicly pushed back against these policies. Thanks to the advocacy of medical professionals and community members, we have restored access to care in Washington State, Colorado, and several other states throughout the country. Clinics and hospitals have been able to resume gender–affirming care, and return to protecting trans youth. We encourage you to reach out to local 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations in your community to stay up to date on these cases, and join us on our strategy calls where we discuss ways to mobilize and protect our patient population across the country. We at SNaHP would like to remind you that we are stronger together!
From one of us to all of us,
~Natalie Koconis