A crowd gathers outside of Virginia’s Capitol on Feb. 10, 2025, to call on legislators to protect transgender individuals. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)
With legal battles still unfolding over access to gender-affirming care for minors, the University of Virginia’s board of visitors is set to hold a special meeting Friday to discuss the ongoing uncertainty.
The meeting follows weeks of confusion for transgender youth and their families after an executive order from President Donald Trump prompted three Virginia hospitals to pause gender-affirming care for patients under 19. Although federal judges in Baltimore and Seattle have temporarily blocked the order, the situation remains in flux as potential appeals loom.
As one of the hospitals that had halted services, UVa Health, has since resumed providing gender-affirming care. However, the university’s board of visitors will now examine its authority over hospital regulations, compliance with the executive order, and the broader implications of the contested healthcare policies.
According to the meeting agenda, the board will enter a closed session — barring public access — to deliberate on its legal role, the impact on UVa Health and the types of medical care at the heart of the order.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. on Friday and will be held in person with no live-stream option. While members of the public can attend, there will be no opportunity for unscheduled public comments and much of the meeting is expected to happen in closed session.
University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias highlighted the financial considerations at play as university hospitals assess their response to the policy shift. UVa Health and VCU Health — both of which initially paused gender-affirming care — receive federal funding for research, a factor likely influencing their decisions.
“If the lawyers are cautious, they don’t want to jeopardize the funding of the research that’s critical to the research hospital,” Tobias said. “At the same time, they want to serve people.”
Trump’s order directs the federal government to take regulatory action aimed at restricting transgender health care, with a primary focus on Medicare and Medicaid conditions of participation and coverage.
Beyond insurance coverage for individual patients, many hospitals nationwide, including those in Virginia, rely on Medicaid and Medicare funding to support their operations.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares quickly followed Trump’s directive issuing a memo advising hospitals to comply with the administration’s stance.
Meanwhile, Sen. Danica Roem, D-Prince William, said that parents of transgender minors have reached out in recent weeks, worried about ensuring their children’s prescriptions remain available.
Roem, who made history in 2017 as the first openly transgender person elected to a U.S. state legislature, pointed to Virginia laws that prohibit LGBTQ+ discrimination in “places of public accommodation” — which include publicly funded hospitals such as UVa Health.
“It’s pretty clear,” she said.
Roem also described the actions taken by the Trump administration and many Republican lawmakers as efforts to “eradicate” transgender people’s identities.
Beyond Trump’s executive orders on gender-affirming care and transgender participation in sports, Roem points to broader actions targeting the transgender community — such as the newly imposed ban on trans people serving in the military and the removal of transgender history from government websites.
She also views the decision to classify individuals under 19 — not just minors — as part of the policy as a way to “start chipping away” at transgender health care for adults.
Trump’s order further refers to gender-affirming care as “mutilation” and “junk science.”
Roem emphasized that this rhetoric carries deeper implications.
“When I say eradication, I don’t mean this in the way that we see a lot of politicians use hyperbole and they say the most tremendous, greatest, biggest thing has ever happened,” she said. “(Republicans) mean for trans people in general, to not be recognized by the federal government for who we are, and to say that our lives are lies.”
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