- The Vanderbilt Pediatric Transgender Clinic halts operations ahead of a new law that would ban gender-transition care to minor patients
- The new bill would prohibit doctors from prescribing minor patients with puberty blockers, hormone treatments, or other medical procedures for gender dysphoria
- Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee was the one who signed the bill into law in March
The Vanderbilt Pediatric Transgender Clinic located at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital opted to cease operations ahead of a new law that bans gender-transition care.
The Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) located in Nashville, Tennessee, reported that it has decided to stop providing gender-transitioning treatments to children a month before a new bill in Tennessee takes effect.
Tennessee's New Law Against Gender-Affirming Care
The new legislation would prohibit medical professionals from prescribing minor patients with puberty blockers, hormone treatments, or performing other medical procedures for gender dysphoria.
GOP Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill into law last March that prohibits health care providers from performing on "a minor or administering to a minor a medical procedure if the performance or administration of the procedure is to enable a minor to identify with or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex," as per Blaze Media.
Under the new legislation, children would need to end treatment within nine months, and healthcare providers found to go against the law could face a civil penalty of $25,000 per violation.
In a statement, the patients' families at the hospital said that parents received an email from VUMC informing them that their children would no longer be receiving "gender-affirming care." The message added that their current medication prescriptions were affected by Tennessee's new laws that would come into effect.
The hospital noted that VUMC would not fulfill requests for medication prescribed for gender-affirming care after June 1, 2023. It added that all medications dispensed for gender-affirming care must be completed before that date.
Calling Gender Transition Surgeries Abuse
Lee's new law would take effect on July 1 and fulfills his commitment during an anti-trans rally in October last year that Matt Walsh led. According to the Nashville Post, the latter was also found to have led an attack on the VUMC clinic on Twitter ahead of the said rally.
The American Civil Liberties Union and others brought a lawsuit in April against the state on behalf of families with transgender children. After a week of the filing, the United States Department of Justice intervened to try and block the law from taking effect.
The situation comes after a group of Republican lawmakers in October called on the Vanderbilt Pediatric Transgender Clinic to stop providing gender-affirming surgeries to minors. State Rep. Jason Zachary and more than 60 of his GOP colleagues addressed the chair of the hospital's board of directors in a letter.
They argued that they had been alarmed by recent reports describing "surgical mutilations of minor children at the clinic. " The pediatric clinic's practices were considered nothing less than "abuse," said NBC News.
