At a time with growing anti-trans legislation in many states,Transhealth — the Bay State-based, trans-led, gender-affirming health care center for trans and gender-diverse people and their families — is expanding its online services to people in other states.
Reports MassLive.com:
[The organization] recently reached a milestone of serving 2,000 patients.
As a result of trans rights being “politicized,” many of those patients are coming from out of state, according to Dallas Ducar, the organization’s chief executive.
“It’s been a constant,” said Ducar. “We’re living in a time now where people are actively fleeing other states to Massachusetts, to ensure that they can get good medical care.”
Although they’re located in Western Massachusetts, Transhealth, founded in 2021, has welcomed patients from other New England states such as Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont, and has gotten inquiries from people looking to relocate to New England in order to get better gender-affirming care.
Ducar said that the way health care is provided to transgender individuals has changed, but that gender-affirming care is being outlawed in a large part of the United States.
As of August, 21 states have a law or policy that bans gender-affirming care for anyone under the age of 18, according to the Human Rights Campaign. …
Due to these laws expanding across U.S. states, Massachusetts passed An Act Expanding Protections for Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Care Act also known as Chapter 127 in July 2022, which legally protects gender affirming health care services.
When Transhealth created a needs assessment, they found that about 30,000 transgender and gender diverse Massachusetts residents were in need of medically appropriate health care, according to Ducar.
“We have many people from within the state that still need access to just basic health care,” said Ducar. “There’s a dire need right now.”
There are other clinics in Massachusetts and the broader U.S. that provide gender-affirming care such as Mass. General Hospital and Fenway Health. But to Ducar’s knowledge, Transhealth is the only independent, sole provider for gender affirming care.
“I don’t know of another one,” said Ducar. “I don’t know anyone else that has put their whole organization on the line and said, ‘This is all we’re doing. We are going to provide affirming care.’”
Read the complete MassLive.com article here.
More: transhealth.org
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