By Healthcare Brew Staff
less than 3 min read
Definition:
Gender-affirming care includes “social, psychological, behavioral, or medical…interventions designed to support and affirm” a patient’s gender, according to the WHO.
How does gender-affirming care improve patient well-being?
Most major medical associations acknowledge gender-affirming care as vital to a transgender person’s well-being. This care ranges from wearing clothing that fits a patient’s preferred identity to medical interventions like hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and surgical procedures.
The What We Know Project at Cornell University found that gender transition helps treat gender dysphoria and can significantly improve transgender patients’ well-being. And a 2022 US Trans Survey led by nonprofit Advocates for Trans Equality Education Fund saw that 98% of respondents who received hormones and 97% who underwent a surgical procedure were happier.
What opposition has there been to gender-affirming care?
Gender-affirming care has had major legislative hurdles thrown up.
More than 20 states have instituted bans on medication and surgical procedures for transgender youth. And the Trump administration signed an executive order on Jan. 28, 2025, stating that organizations could no longer receive federal funding if they provide gender-affirming surgeries, hormones, or puberty blockers to patients under 19.
How are providers responding?
Some hospitals have paused or limited gender-affirming care for minors to avoid lawsuits or having their funding cut off. And shield laws currently protect providers in 14 states and Washington, DC, from criminal charges for providing gender-affirming care.
Nonprofits, including the ACLU, have sued the Trump administration over its ban.
