Transgender Youths and Sanctuaries for Gender-Affirming Care

Approximately 33% of adolescents aged 13 to 17 years who identify as transgender now live in states that have enacted bans on gender-affirming care (GAC)—a form of care comprising medical and nonmedical services based on extensive multidisciplinary evidence-based guidelines that support transgender people’s gender identity and expression. In addition to prohibiting access to GAC, many antitransgender policies include legal penalties for parents and health care professionals who enable youths seeking gender-affirming services. These antitransgender policies have harmful consequences.

The ability to access GAC is paramount to transgender youths’ well-being. GAC takes many forms, including mental health services, hormone therapy, surgical procedures, and social affirmation related to gender pronouns and name changes. Together, these forms of care allow transgender youths to align their bodies and social presentations with their sense of self, thereby reducing feelings of dissatisfaction with how they see themselves and are perceived by others.

Vanderbilt's Approach:

Tara McKay, assistant professor of medicine, health, and society and associate director of the Center for Research on Inequality and Health, has collaborated with Harry Barbee of Johns Hopkins University to explore solutions to this problem. They believe that state and local governments should intervene by implementing policies that offer sanctuary to transgender youths and their families who are seeking GAC. Such policies would support transgender youths’ access to necessary health care while protecting them and their families from hostile policies in their home states.