‘We’ve created medical refugees.’ LGBTQ+ healthcare workers fight for

[Lori Dee]

'We've created medical refugees.' LGBTQ+ healthcare workers fight for gender-affirming care amid rise in anti-trans laws
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Los Angeles Times - Jireh Deng, Staff Writer
July 10, 2024 3 AM PT

Yearly surveys of first-year medical students by the Assn. of American Medical Colleges show that the percentage identifying as transgender and gender nonconforming doubled from 0.7% in 2020 to 1.4% in 2023.

These numbers align with the growing LGBTQ+ population in the United States. Today, younger generations are more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ than generations before. A national survey this year found that 28% of Gen Z respondents identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer.

But that rise in LGBTQ+-identified youths and trans healthcare workers has coincided with escalating restrictions on gender-affirming care.

Between 2022 and 2023, anti-trans legislation proposed across statehouses tripled, with a majority of the bills proposing restrictions on gender-affirming care. According to the Movement Advancement Project, at least half of the states exclude transgender-related healthcare for youths from their Medicaid programs, while only 22 explicitly cover it.

An uptick in the number of transgender-identifying youths seeking gender-affirming care sparked a theory that "social contagion" was influencing teens to experience "rapid-onset gender dysphoria." Some practitioners oppose this framing, and research published by the American Academy of Pediatrics has disproved it. Both the American Psychiatric Assn. and the American Pediatric Assn. support gender-affirming care for adolescents.

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