Planned Parenthood of Arizona "Pauses" Gender Affirming Care for Trans Adults

If Planned Parenthood withholds treatment, many trans people may lose access to gender affirming care altogether, experts warn.

Dwain Currier / Creative Commons

Clariece, a 23-year-old trans woman in Mesa, Arizona, said she got the phone call late on Friday from her Planned Parenthood doctor’s office. It was in regards to her routine appointment that Monday—the office was cancelling her visit, and all upcoming visits for trans patients seeking gender affirming care in the coming week.

“We are hoping that this is a temporary pause for the next week,” a representative said, as per a voicemail left to Clariece. The office said they would reach out when they knew they could reschedule.

Clareice was able to find another provider—missing even a week of hormone replacement therapy can be destabilizing, and it can be a major setback due to the stringent regulations on hormones for trans patients—but since getting the call, she says she’s felt "the sword of Damocles” hanging over her head.

“Even a little bump can push back when you go and see somebody, which pushes back when you get your lab work, which pushes back when you can get a new prescription written, and that all means there will probably be a gap,” she told Erin in the Morning. (She spoke on the condition that her last name be omitted from publication due to privacy concerns.)

By Saturday, April 12, Erin in the Morning reported that the Planned Parenthood of Arizona had added a new banner on its website.

“At this time, Planned Parenthood Arizona is pausing Gender Affirming Care services,” the header reads. “We are committed to keeping our patients updated about the services we provide and will communicate further once we can provide more information.”

“Care no matter what”

It says the catalyst for the stoppage was an April 11 letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) which ordered Medicaid agencies to halt funding for any clinics that provide gender affirming care for trans people.

The CMS is a government agency led by Mehmet Oz—a doctor-turned-media-mogul-turned-politician whose claim to fame is promoting dangerous “miracle” (pseudoscientific) weight loss drugs and cancer cures to a live studio audience via The Dr. Oz Show.

“Initiated with an underdeveloped body of evidence, [gender affirming] interventions lack reliable evidence of long-term benefits for minors,” the CMS letter reads.

Put simply, this is not true. Every major medical association supports affirming health care for transgender youth. Meanwhile, the CMS letter cites Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate groups known for dubious, anti-LGBT “science,” such as Do No Harm, which was founded to stop “woke” health care, and the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, which pushes conversion therapy for trans kids.

But the Planned Parenthood of Arizona’s pause on care is not just about kids; adults are also barred from gender affirming care.

Planned Parenthood did not respond to requests for comment.

In 2021, Dr. Bhavik Kumar, the medical director of primary and trans care at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, told NPR that over 35,000 patients nationwide had sought gender affirming hormone replacement therapy at Planned Parenthood clinics that year.

According to Kumar, in areas where gender affirming care is sparse, Planned Parenthood may be the only place where transgender people can access health care, period.

"When that's taken away,” he said, “they're left sometimes with no options.”

Meanwhile, many scholars have denounced medical institutions for over-complying with attacks on trans-affirming care. In New York, activists plastered protest signs on sites associated with NYU Langone, which went above and beyond the law (if not against the law) when it cancelled medical appointments for trans youth. And protestors have gathered at hospitals across the country calling on health care providers to support trans patients.

Gender affirming care bans are “intentionally vague,” according to Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, Executive Director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, in a 2023 report on such bans. She said that this serves to intimidate and pressure providers of gender affirming care for trans people. The report found that “overcompliance leads to compounding harms for transgender youth.”

“We’ve seen medical institutions shutter services that they are not legally required to, and we’ve seen illegal denials of pharmaceutical care,” she said. “As advocates fight these laws in the courts and on the ground, we urge medical providers, pharmacies, and communities at large to not make this crisis worse through overcompliance with the law.”