Gender-Affirming Care

In January, Utah banned gender-affirming care for minors.

In a year that saw polarized policymaking around transgender Americans, MPR News and KUER teamed up to tell the story of how gender-affirming care bans and care shields are affecting access in Minnesota and Utah.

Intermountain Health’s gender care surgical director was already seeing patients when the provider decided to shelve a range of care known as “bottom surgeries.”

Gender-affirming care bans have passed in at least 13 states this year — including conservative Utah and South Dakota — and are being considered in two dozen more. The new laws have forced families to adapt to a shifting legal landscape with an unforeseen sense of panic and urgency.

Mental health providers and physicians who treat transgender youth are grappling with how to care for their patients in the wake of Utah’s gender-affirming care ban.

The are worries that gender-affirming care bans, and a sweep of other trans legislation nationwide, are driving people “back into the closet for safety.”

The Human Rights Campaign says at least 150 bills targeting transgender people have been introduced this year — including gender-affirming care bans for minors that have been enacted in South Dakota and Utah.

Utah lawmakers moved swiftly this session to ban gender-affirming care for minors — and the governor signed it the next day.

Gov. Spencer Cox, who had not taken a public position on the transgender care measure, signed it a day after the Legislature sent it to his desk.

The bill on its way to Gov. Spencer Cox prohibits transgender surgery for youth and bans hormone treatments for minors. He now has 10 days to decide what to do with it.

The House bill passed on Jan. 26 is different from what passed through the Senate earlier in the session, so another vote is needed there.

The bills affect transgender health care and gender identity. They now head to the Utah House of Representatives.