Mayor Ed Gainey (center) and Dena Stanley (right) along with organizers and speakers of the UPMC protest.
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Hundreds of LGBTQ activists and allies in Pennsylvania descended on a major hospital chain refusing to offer gender-affirming care for trans youth. The Trans YOUniting protests took place at UPMC campuses last week across the state following a decision to comply with an anti-trans executive order by President Donald Trump even after courts blocked enforcement on the ban.
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Almost 200 people alone showed up at UPMC’s hospital in Pittsburgh, home to the largest gender clinic in Southwest Pennsylvania, and continued to make their voices heard even as rain poured on the rally. The protests there and at other UPMC campuses in the state took place after the hospital
“We are human beings,” Dena Stanley, Trans YOUniting executive director, said from the hospital steps. “And guess what? We are not your political pawns.”
Stanley said protesters needed to make their voices heard after UPMC preemptively caved to the Trump administration's rhetoric. Protesters were joined by elected officials, many of whom signed onto a letter from Trans YOUniting that the hospital chain change course.
“We are calling on UPMC to immediately restore access to protect gender affirming healthcare for trans youth and young adults currently being turned away,” the letter reads. “Gender affirming care for youth is medically necessary, life-saving healthcare, supported by every major medical organization in the United States based on decades of scientific, evidence-based, peer-reviewed research. Evidence shows that without access to these interventions, youth — especially to those just starting puberty — will be harmed. This includes suffering physical changes that are not easily reversible, lifelong trauma in some cases, and when they have no hope of access to care — death.”
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Pittsburgh hospital protest speakers and supporters of transgender rights holding protect trans kids sign.Courtesy Emilia Rowland
The letter demands that UPMC immediately reinstate full gender affirming care for new and existing patients at CHP in Pittsburgh, given the current circumstances. If a court ultimately does require UPMC to cease direct gender affirming care for young trans people, the letter urges UPMC to “enthusiastically support and fund alternative providers to ensure trans youth receive the medically necessary healthcare they need to survive.” It calls for the chain to establish an advisory committee with trans youth and community leaders to advise hospital administration on gender affirming care.
The letter also urged UPMC not to retaliate against the LGBTQ community.
Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey was the top signature on the letter from an elected official. As numerous marginalized communities come under attack from the Trump administration, he said it was critical elected officials rally behind trans youth now.
“We have to make a statement about it because if we don't say nothing, silence gives them the ability to think that they can do it,” he said.
Already, the hospital chain’s pause in service has detrimentally affected youth in the community. Jason Landau Goodman, board chair of Pennsylvania Youth Congress and a longtime LGBTQ advocate, said he knows many feeling the effects of the police now.
“Young trans people throughout Pennsylvania and the region are going to be directly harmed because of this action. Our communities are rising up together to push back against this discriminatory action,” he said. “The pre-compliance of an illegal executive order is unacceptable, and public officials, community leaders, trans Pennsylvanians and their allies are saying, enough. This must be reversed, and this discrimination stops here.”
Gainey added, "Health care providers, and definitely so called 'public charities' can't discriminate, and the city of Pittsburgh has laws on the books to ensure people have equal access to health care regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. My administration's law department is examining legal avenues to enforce our city's non-discrimination policies, and we expect health systems that operate here to follow the law."
And if it doesn’t? Protesters noted that some Pennsylvania officials want the state to become a sanctuary for trans youth and families fleeing policies in other states. That could be complicated if hospitals, fearful of the Trump administration, kowtow to hate in Washington.
Pittsburgh hospital protest speakers and supporters of transgender rights rainbow umbrella and flags in background.Courtesy Emilia Rowland
Gainey said elected officials will need to explore ways to respond if UPMC doesn’t respond to the community’s demands.
“I would hope that other federally qualified hospitals and others would step in,” he said. “But you know, we would have to work with the LGBTQ community to find out exactly how we can come together and what that strategy looks like in order to really be able to move things forward. That's a conversation that we would have to have.
“But as mayor, I'm going to use every tool at my disposal to pressure them and to assure the folks that at the end of the day, we want them to do what's right.”
Meanwhile, every week, youth in Pennsylvania cannot access care, and administration of treatment becomes more complicated, especially for those youth receiving treatment as they go through puberty.
“This is life or death,” Stanley told The Advocate. She said her organization has heard from families having appointments canceled or showing up to hear their doctors tell them they can no longer provide care.
“These immoral policy statements from the highest levels of our federal government are statements, and they are at this time only enforced if institutions capitulate,” Stanley said. “And that is exactly what UPMC is doing. That is not acceptable.”
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