President Donald Trump’s executive order that aims to block federal funding and restrict gender-affirming care for people under 19 has transgender residents and advocates alarmed, though health care officials have sought to offer a measure of reassurance.
“There’s a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear,” said Shawna Trader, a trans and nonbinary resident and volunteer at the Rainbow Bridge Community Center in Barre, a nonprofit that serves LGBTQ+ needs in central Vermont.
While a number of states have already restricted access to gender-affirming care, in Vermont such care remains available and is, for the most part, covered by Medicaid.
Trump’s order, signed on Tuesday, includes directives to remove federal guidelines on gender affirming care, civil rights and patient privacy and prevent Medicaid and Tricare — a form of military health insurance — from funding such procedures. The order also takes aim at medical institutions that receive any type of federal funding and provide such care.
Mike Fisher, Vermont’s chief health care advocate, acknowledged there was “a great deal of fear and uncertainty” provoked by the order but emphasized that such health care services remain protected in Vermont. (In 2023, the state passed a “shield law” to protect providers and patients from potential investigations related to gender-affirming care and abortion services.)
“We want to assure Vermonters there have been no changes to the protections for accessing care that are protected in Vermont state law,” he said. He and others pointed to the likelihood that the order will face legal challenges.
‘Services are still available’
Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, which provides gender-affirming care, has adopted a wait-and-watch approach, in the meantime.
“It’s tough to say what is going to happen because there are so many steps in between the executive order and things going into effect,” said Jessica Barquist, a Vermont lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. The organization has been fielding a high volume of inquiries from concerned people, she said.
“I think part of the strategy here is to get people to panic,” she said. “And so, part of what we’re hoping to do is reassure patients that services are still available. And as of right now, there are no impacts.”
Daniel Barlow, executive director of the People’s Health & Wellness Clinic in Barre, which treats patients 18 and older, called the order “a dangerous escalation in the ongoing political attacks on transgender and nonbinary people, and we fear it will deny lifesaving care to Vermonters of all ages.”
But the clinic, he said, will continue to provide care to all patients who qualify, regardless of gender identity.
A spokesperson from the Vermont Department of Health declined to comment.
‘We’re all just petrified’
Trader, the Rainbow Bridge volunteer, who facilitated a meeting Tuesday night for parents of transgender children, said residents are deeply worried about access to medication and health care in the wake of orders that target and discriminate against a very vulnerable group — transgender youth.
“Basically, if you have a trans kid, an actual minor, you are right now wondering: how am I going to be able to get the care that my child needs and wants? And so, a lot of those people are basically making contingency plans,” Trader said.
This includes mothers trying to get their own physicians to write prescriptions for hormone medications on behalf of their children or trying to access health care in Canada, Trader said.
“We’re all just petrified,” said Andrea, whose 22-year-old daughter is transgender and who asked that her last name be withheld because of concerns for her family’s safety. While she’s always worried for her daughter’s safety, she is more so now, given the current climate.
“I’m constantly afraid,” she said.”The reality is that she is more likely to be targeted, violently, sexually (and face) harassment.”
When Andrea heard about the latest executive order rolling back protections for transgender people, she said she cried and was overwhelmed with a “feeling of dread” and helplessness. Parents of trans children are going off social media, and changing emails and phone numbers because they’re afraid their children and their families could be targeted, she added.
About 3% of Vermont middle school students and 5% of high school students surveyed identify as transgender, according to the 2023 statewide youth behavioral report compiled by the state health department. As students who identify as LGBTQ+, they are disproportionately more likely to face bullying, experience or witness violence, and self harm, the report states.
Nationwide, there has been a significant rise in hate and violence toward the transgender community in recent years. Trump’s campaign promise to protect children from “left wing gender insanity” further fueled the fire last year, CNN reported.
‘Gender-affirming care is health care’
Advocacy groups are pushing back on the Trump administration’s latest executive order, which comes on the heels of earlier orders that seek to ban transgender people from serving in the military (which already faces a court challenge) and to require the U.S. government to only recognize two sexes — male and female.
“The anti-trans executive orders are largely rooted in baseless facts and extremist ideologies,” said Dana Kaplan, executive director of Outright Vermont, a statewide nonprofit that supports LGBTQ+ people, in an email.
Kaplan noted that executive orders do not have the authority to override the United States Constitution, federal statutes or established legal precedent.
James Lyall, executive director of the ACLU of Vermont, called the order “an unprecedented abuse of federal power that will be challenged.”
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark said her office is reviewing all the Trump administration’s executive orders, including ones with the potential to impact health care for trans and nonbinary youth and is exploring options to challenge any orders it deems unlawful.
“I want to reassure our trans and non-binary friends, family members, and especially kids that I will use the full force of my office to defend their rights,” she said in an emailed statement.
The executive order states the United States will “not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another” and will enforce laws that prohibit or limit such “destructive and life-altering procedures.”
It further states that “medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions.”
Organizations that provide gender-affirming medical treatment pushed back on that language.
Standards of medical care for gender dysphoria have been around for decades and involve the consent of the patient or their caregivers if the patient is a minor, and an in-depth screening and assessment by mental health professionals, said Heather Ely, executive director of the Rainbow Bridge Community Center in Barre.
“All of the leading medical associations endorse this medical care because scientific research shows it to be effective and essential to the health and well-being of transgender people,” she added. “Regret for transition-related care is about 1% or less. By comparison, regret after knee replacement surgeries can be as high as 30%.”
Trader, 38, who has received gender-affirming care at Planned Parenthood and at the Barre clinic, criticized the order and the language used.
The word “mutilation,” she said, has a connotation that is at odds with medical science that overwhelmingly indicates that gender-affirming care saves lives.
“Gender affirming care is health care,” Trader said. “So to receive it as a trans person is no different than booking an appointment with your cardiologist and having an echocardiogram. You are taking care of your heart. And when a trans person gets gender affirming care, they are taking care of themselves.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Trump order curbing access to gender-affirming care for youth creates ‘a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear’ in Vermont.