A new report from The Campaign for Southern Equality documents how conservative lawmakers at both the state and federal level are finding new policy pathways to restrict access to gender-affirming care for youth and adults
ASHEVILLE – Today the Campaign for Southern Equality released a new report, “The New Policy Pathways Anti-Trans Policymakers Are Using to Intensify and Nationalize Attacks on Gender-Affirming Care.” The report documents the new policy pathways (including laws, administrative rules, and executive orders) policymakers are using to restrict both youth and adult access to gender-affirming care, and provides insight and recommendations from Campaign for Southern Equality.
Just four years ago, transgender youth were able to access gender-affirming care in all 50 U.S. states; today, 27 states and Puerto Rico outright ban this life-saving healthcare for youth. At the Campaign for Southern Equality, we are working everyday to respond directly to these bans through our Trans Youth Emergency Project, which helps families of transgender youth locate healthcare providers and pay for the cost of travel to out-of-state care. Beyond this, we are closely tracking and advocating against policies at the state and federal level that restrict gender-affirming care. In our latest report, we identify eight different policy pathways anti-trans policymakers are using to intensify and nationalize restrictions on care access, including:
- Expansions on previous youth gender-affirming care bans
- Policies targeting parents & caregivers of transgender youth
- Policies that increase legal risk for providers and surveillance of gender-affirming care
- Policies restricting use of public funds for gender-affirming care
- Administrative rules and Executive Orders limiting access to gender-affirming care
- Bans on state and federal employee insurance coverage of gender-affirming care
- Policies restricting gender-affirming care access for incarcerated people
- Religious exemption laws targeting gender-affirming care
Our research sheds light on the creeping normalization and widening scope of restrictions on gender-affirming care. States that have already passed youth gender-affirming care bans are seeking to intensify their bans by passing policies that increase legal risk for providers, as well as proposing policies that target parents and caregivers of transgender youth. Concerningly, policymakers’ attacks on care access do not end with youth. States are increasingly passing policies that restrict gender-affirming care for people of all ages; like barring public funds for gender-affirming care, banning state employee health insurance coverage of care, banning care for incarcerated people, and allowing providers to refuse to provide gender-affirming care because of their religious beliefs. With a firmly anti-transgender president at the helm of our country, we are now seeing these policies replicated at the federal level.
An Executive Order issued by Donald Trump in the early days of his presidency has pressured over twenty hospitals to stop providing gender-affirming care to youth. The administration and its allies in Congress are actively working to eliminate all public funding for gender-affirming care, including removing gender-affirming care coverage for federal employees, banning those incarcerated in federal facilities from accessing care (this Executive Order is currently blocked by a court), and, most recently, releasing a House Health and Human Services Appropriations bill that would bar all federal funding for gender-affirming care.
As an LGBTQ+ organization rooted in the South, the Campaign for Southern Equality has long been aware that when one state adopts an anti-LGBTQ+ policy, others tend to follow. This report details how quickly this pattern is repeating itself when it comes to gender-affirming care policy, not only in the states but at the federal level. With increasingly extreme policies being replicated, especially those that restrict public funds for gender-affirming care, both youth and adult access to gender-affirming care are under threat. Read the full report here.
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Based in Asheville, NC, the Campaign for Southern Equality works for full LGBTQ equality across the South. Our work is rooted in commitments to equity in race, gender and class. Through our Trans Youth Emergency Project we provide 1-on-1 custom patient navigation services to unimpacted providers and support families of transgender youth with travel grants.
