STATE COLLEGE — On Friday, May 9, dozens of community members gathered at Penn State University’s Allen Street Gates to show support for transgender youth and their families. The rally, hosted by Centre LGBT+, was organized in response to recent decisions by Penn State Health and UPMC to withhold gender affirming services for youth under 19 years old, and was just one of several rallies across the state on Friday.
“TransYOUniting is mobilizing another mass rally in Pittsburgh, Centre LGBT+ is organizing a large rally in State College and the Eastern PA Trans Equity Project and the Pennsylvania Youth Congress are mobilizing a rally in Hershey,” Centre LGBT+ explained in a press release ahead of the rally.
The announcements follow executive orders from the current administration threatening funding cuts for institutions that offer gender affirming care to minors — a restriction that Centre LGBT+ board member and spokesperson Michel Lee Garrett, along with local elected officials, said will negatively impact vulnerable youth and their families.
“The decision of Penn State Health and UPMC to align their gender affirming care policies with an unjust, unscientific and medically unfounded executive order is a decision to prioritize political convenience over patient care,” Lee Garrett said. “Gender affirming care is medical best practice that is validated, affirmed, endorsed and recommended by every major medical association.”
Lee Garrett listed the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Psychological Association, the American Association of Political Endocrinology and the American Academy of Pediatrics as examples of institutions that have endorsed gender affirming care as life-saving medical treatment for transgender minors.
Citing a 2022 Journal of the American Medical Association study that found that transgender youth who have access to gender affirming care experience a 60% drop in severe depression and a 73% drop in suicidality, Lee Garrett underscored the potential impact of the decision on local families.
“Penn State Health and UPMC are knowingly, willfully choosing to kill trans kids by refusing to offer life-saving gender affirming medical care,” Lee Garrett said, referencing studies showing the link between access to gender affirming care and reduced suicide rates among trans youth.
Following Lee Garrett’s remarks, Ezra Nanes, Mayor of the Borough of State College and father of a transgender daughter, addressed the crowd alongside his wife, Meike Nanes.
“It’s very simple,” said Nanes. “Gender affirming health care is central to our family’s overall happiness and well-being … Our daughters are happy. Why would you want to take that away from us?
“Targeting transgender youth is not going to help anybody, it’s not going to solve [complicated societal] problems. In fact, it harms people. It takes happiness away. It takes life away, as Michel has said. I personally am calling on Penn State Health and UPMC to reinstate gender affirming health care for people under the age of 19.”
Thanks in part to Nanes’ advocacy in local government, the Borough of State College has been classified as a Transgender Sanctuary City, pledging noncompliance with discriminatory policies.
State Representative Paul Takac (D-College Township) also spoke at the rally, reinforcing Lee Garrett’s assertion that major medical journals support evidence-based gender affirming care for transgender youth.
“Providing [gender affirming] care saves lives, and withholding it will not only cost lives, but will cause incalculable suffering and pain that in some cases may last a lifetime,” said Takac. “Penn State Health’s decision is a capitulation to demagoguery, intolerance and political opportunism, and it implicitly endorses blatant misinformation and mischaracterization about the care that they provide.
“It’s a submission to those who are willing to scapegoat, demonize and even sacrifice some of the most vulnerable and marginalized in our community.”
Takac continued, questioning where such harmful scrutiny of medical care could lead if left unchallenged.
“Where will it end? With prosecutions for providing care to the undocumented? For providing reproductive services or any other medical treatment that they object to?” He remarked.
Attendees were encouraged to scan QR codes linking to pre-drafted emails to Penn State Health and UPMC, urging them to reverse their decisions and support gender affirming care.
Additional QR codes directed attendees to email local systems, Geisinger and Mount Nittany Health — encouraging them to continue offering gender affirming care — and to contact the leadership of major medical associations to urge continued advocacy for evidence-based, life-saving care for transgender minors.
- Email Penn State Health: trevor-lgbt-plus.github.io/emails/PSH.html
- Email UPMC: trevor-lgbt-plus.github.io/Emails/UPMC.html
- Email Geisinger: trevor-lgbt-plus.github.io/Emails/Geisenger2.html
- Email Mount Nittany Health: trevor-lgbt-plus.github.io/Emails/MtNittany.html
Email medical associations’ leadership: trevor-lgbt-plus.github.io/Emails/medical.html
