Advocates rally in support of trans health care in front of UPMC building

Advocates, lawmakers, allies and members of the Pittsburgh community rallied Downtown on Sunday afternoon against UPMC’s recent policy decision to end gender-affirming care for transgender people under 19.

The group gathered along Grant Street in front of the UPMC headquarters with signs, Pride flags, and chalk drawings, and chanted and spoke in support of trans healthcare.

“What they are doing is disgusting. They're using our babies for political pawns,” said Dena Stanley, executive director of TransYouniting, the trans advocacy organization that called for the rally.

“Today we stand here and we let them know that we're going to continue to fight until that is reversed. We are not going to be silent, and we're not going to lay down, because the kids are our future and we are going to fight for them every single day.”

The UPMC policy criticized by attendees at the event follows on the heels of President Donald Trump’s January executive order calling for stricter limitations on gender-affirming care and threatening to pull federal funding for institutions that provide it.

Not long after the executive order was issued, UPMC also canceled surgeries for patients under 19. The healthcare nonprofit expanded that policy by winding down prescriptions for puberty blockers or hormone therapies to those patients this month.

When reached for comment last week, a UPMC spokesperson said the health system’s actions are necessary to comply with federal directives.

Attendees at the event, including a number of UPMC staffers, said the healthcare company should not accept the demands of the Trump administration when gender affirming care for minors and 18-year-olds is not currently a crime in Pennsylvania, where UPMC primarily operates (the health system also has locations in western New York, Maryland and West Virginia). Pittsburgh city law also de-emphasizes enforcement of any gender-affirming care ban.

Several speakers said the policy, set to go into effect starting Monday, would actively harm children.

“UPMC higher-ups told us to prepare for an influx – a large influx – of suicidal trans teens as a direct result of their actions,” said Katherine Anderson, a behavioral health therapist at UPMC’s Services for Teens at Risk (STAR) Center, a clinic that specializes in youth suicide prevention.

“They know this will kill people and they are choosing to do it anyway.”

Anderson was one of more than 380 UPMC staffers who signed on to an open letter urging the company not to cease care. She and other UPMC employees read the letter aloud at the rally.

“We need to stand with our trans clients, friends, and community members to say we will not simply follow deadly orders, and we insist UPMC do the same,” she said.

Local and state officials, including state representatives Jessica Benham and Lindsay Powell, Allegheny County Councilor Bethany Hallam, Pittsburgh City Councilor Barb Warwick and Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey all spoke at the event in support of keeping healthcare available for trans youth.

“When we take on the mantle of not taking care of our kids because someone in the White House has got more hatred than any President I've ever seen [and] makes a statement that you feel that you’ve got to cater to, we are on the wrong side of humanity,” Gainey said. “It's not enough to say that you're the healthcare that cares when your action says, ‘I don't give a damn.’”

Other advocates encouraged trans youth and adults not to give up.

“For me, transitioning at 15 was a turning point…The support I got through gender affirming care, whether it was therapy or starting hormones, was the lifeline that helped me not just to survive but begin to thrive,” said Kaiah Scott, an advocate with Pittsburgh’s QMNTY Center.

“I'm not going to give up and neither should anyone else. We have to keep fighting for the right to exist, authentically, because if we don't, we all lose,” she said.

Many attendees at the gathering said they wanted to be there in person to show support for trans healthcare.

“Gender-affirming care is basic healthcare. It is the same as any other kind of reason you would go to your doctor,” said Aviva Lubowsky of Squirrel Hill. “There should be equal access to medical care for every human and every child in our system.”

Said Sabrina Zitzelberger, a therapist who works with trans people, “this decision by UPMC to cut off care when they were not legally required to do so will kill people. I'm not sugarcoating it.

“People will die because of this. It's really gross.”

Kyle McGaughy of Mt. Oliver said this series of events affects him on a personal level.

“I know some of my family members have received gender-affirming care and it's turned their life around,” he said. “And I think that everyone who needs that should have access to it. It’s kind of as simple as that.”