Minnesota is fighting back against a new federal push to block gender-affirming care.
The state has joined a 20-state lawsuit to block a new effort to strip Medicare and Medicaid funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care.
While Washington is proposing strict new rules and funding cuts, State Representative Leigh Finke (DFL) and other state leaders say that Minnesota’s "shield laws" remain firmly in place to protect local patients and providers.
"The message that I have for those young people and their families and their parents is this care is legal," Finke says. "Nothing has changed. They should not allow providers to tell them that something has changed. We are going to continue to protect this care as long as possible."
Finke says for now, the state continues to operate as a legal "refuge," ensuring that life-saving healthcare for trans youth stays safe and accessible despite the shifting federal landscape.
The U.S. House recently passed several bills to criminalize gender-affirming care and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has issued a declaration targeting Medicaid funding for local providers.
"The Trans Refuge Law is in effect, and it will continue to protect care in the state of Minnesota for people who live here and who can travel to Minnesota for care until such time as that care is not available here," Finke adds.
Finke also says state officials are actively litigating to ensure that essential healthcare for trans youth stays protected, legal, and uninterrupted.
The sweeping proposals from the Trump administration — the most significant moves this administration has taken so far to restrict the use of puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgical interventions for transgender children — include cutting off federal Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to children and prohibiting federal Medicaid dollars from being used to fund such procedures.
“This is not medicine, it is malpractice,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said of gender-affirming procedures in a news conference on Thursday. “Sex-rejecting procedures rob children of their futures.”
The announcement last month would imperil access in nearly two dozen states where drug treatments and surgical procedures remain legal and covered by Medicaid, which is funded by federal and state dollars.
The proposals run counter to the recommendations of major U.S. medical societies. And advocates for transgender children strongly refuted the administration’s claims about gender-affirming care, saying Thursday’s moves would put lives at risk.
“The multitude of efforts we are seeing from federal legislators to strip transgender and nonbinary youth of the health care they need is deeply troubling,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, of The Trevor Project, a nonprofit suicide prevention organization for LBGTQ+ youth.