State College rally planned as another local health system cuts youth trans care
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Centre LGBT+ plans Aug. 3 rally to protest cuts to youth trans health care.
- Mount Nittany confirms it no longer offers gender-affirming care for minors.
- Rally responds to Trump-era order and rising policies restricting trans health access.
Centre LGBT+ is holding a rally Sunday to demand local health care systems reverse their decisions to not offer gender-affirming care to people under 19, a decision Centre County’s largest health care provider appeared to make only recently.
The rally, which will also serve to stand against ongoing attacks against the trans community, is planned for 2 p.m. Aug. 3 at the Allen Street Gates. Michel Lee Garrett, a board member and public relations co-chair for Centre LGBT+, said the rally is part of a coordinated effort with other LGBT+ organizations to maintain the momentum in fighting for the rights of trans, non-binary and gender expansive people.
“We have done several of these rallies in the past number of months, but it is not enough for our health institutions or our public officials, our elected officials, to hear from their constituents once and then let them continue to make the decisions that are putting trans lives at risk and in some cases, ending trans lives,” Lee Garrett said. “We must continue to raise our voices. We must continue to push back against the rising tide of transphobia, and we must continue to urge these institutions and these officials to hold the line against what many in our community describe as an active, attempted trans genocide.”
After President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this year to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth, there was significant confusion among health care systems across the country, with Centre County’s four most prominent health systems handling the order differently.
Mount Nittany told the CDT in February that it would continue to offer care to those under 19, and still offered the care in May. But on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the system said they do not have that program.
“At Mount Nittany Health, we are committed to providing high-quality, compassionate care to everyone in our community. Each patient is unique, and we approach their care with respect for their individual needs, without regard to sex (including sexual orientation or gender identity), race, religious belief, national origin, age, citizenship, disability, or any other protected status,” spokesperson Tania Luciow said in an email.
She continued: “While we do not currently have a gender-affirming care program or provide gender-affirming care to individuals under the age of 19, we continue to provide care — including preventive services, primary care, and emergency care — to all patients in our community.”
That seemed to contradict what Centre LGBT+ was told during a recent meeting with Mount Nittany. Lee Garrett said the organization reached out to leadership at health care systems after the executive order was issued to talk about the importance of continuing to offer this care. She said Mount Nittany was the only one to respond.
They met in early July and Lee Garrett said Mount Nittany clarified they would continue to provide gender-affirming care to people under 19 if they were already established patients, and they would not initiate gender affirming care for new patients under 19.
Luciow did not respond to the CDT for a follow up on when they stopped providing this care.
Penn State Health decided in April it would no longer provide that care. It never offered surgery on minors but it did offer puberty blocks and hormone-replacement therapy until April. UPMC also ended gender-affirming care for minors.
A State College mom, who spoke with the CDT on the condition of anonymity due to concerns for safety, said her daughter receives puberty blockers. She has a prescription from Penn State Health but because her appointments in Hershey don’t always align with when she needs the injections, her pediatrician at Mount Nittany would give her the injections.
But that changed last week. After routinely receiving the injections at Mount Nittany every six months for three years, she and her daughter were told they would no longer be able to do that. She’ll also be unable to receive the prescription from Penn State Health.
“I’m going to do whatever I can to get her care, and we have resources, if we need to go out of state, I can do that but I know others don’t. And especially in this area, there aren’t that many providers that maybe are willing to provide the care initially, and now it’s even less,” she said. “But I am concerned. I’m concerned that the next provider we go to will then change their policy as well.”
Life-saving medical care
Gender-affirming care is life-saving medical care, Lee Garrett said. As a trans woman, she knows that first hand.
Lee Garrett started her transition at 27 years old and her medical transition at 28. Before that, she couldn’t see her future.
“Depression and darkness and suicidality were the defining features of my everyday life. I wanted to die. And now living as the version of myself that I’ve always been and was always supposed to be, I want to live, and that’s beautiful. And I think that we should be doing everything we can to create that pathway to life for as many people as possible,” Lee Garrett said.
A 2022 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary youth, like puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy, was associated with 60% lower odds of moderate to severe depression and 73% lower odds of suicidality.
The State College mom agreed, as she saw the change and difference the gender-affirming care made for her daughter. Now, she worries about her daughter’s future care and how the lack of access to care will impact her.
“I worry what will happen to my child if she doesn’t have the care, how is this going to affect her mental health, how she’s gonna move forward if she can’t be, you know, able to show who she is and get that medical care that’s gonna help her to be who she is on the inside,” she said. “When she first came out, she had issues with her own mental health and this, having socially transitioned and starting medical transition, it’s just been a huge change in her life and her happiness. Any parent, that’s all they want.”
