Nurses condemn attacks on trans people

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3 nurses outside hospital hold signs "Nurses Care for All People" and "Transgender Rights Are Human Rights"

Gender-affirming care is health care

Staff report

National Nurse magazine - Jan | Feb | March 2025 Issue

National Nurses United condemns executive orders issued by the current administration attacking trans people, including removing federal funding from medical schools and hospitals that research gender-affirming care, banning federal funding or support for gender-affirming care for youth under 19, banning trans women and girls from participating in women's sports at both K-12 schools and colleges, and restricted information about trans health care.

In March, NNU also condemned an announcement by the Veterans Health Administration that it would no longer provide gender-affirming care for new veteran patients. 

In response to these actions, RN members have rallied in protest and NNU issued statements in opposition, saying in part: “Nurses across the country are outraged by the Trump administration’s rollout of several policies attacking and endangering transgender Americans’ health, safety, and lives...his policy agenda so far has demonstrated his willingness to not only target trans people with dangerous rhetoric, but also with dangerous policies not backed by science or medicine.

“Health care is a human right. Policies seeking to bar our patients from accessing medically sound forms of health care, including gender-affirming care and reproductive care, are obvious and deliberate attempts to worsen, not improve, the lives of patients.

In particular, several recent executive orders from the Trump administration are cause for alarm, despite unclear legal standing:

  • Attempting to bar institutions receiving federal funding from providing gender-affirming care to those under age 19.
  • Attempting to criminalize education workers who support trans students at schools that receive federal funding.
  • Attempting to erase transgender and nonbinary people from recognition in federal policy, which has halted the ability to update federal identity documents with gender marker changes and is forcing trans people into sex-segregated federal prisons and detention facilities based on sex assigned at birth and reportedly denying them gender-affirming care.
  • Expelling transgender personnel from the U.S. military
  • Removing protections against discrimination on the basis of sex in educational environments 

In February, nurses at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco held an action in front of the hospital to publicly show their immigrant and trans patient communities that they should feel welcomed and safe seeking medical care there, and nurses would continue to stand with and advocate for them as they have always done. 

“Gender-affirming care is health care, and health care is a human right,” said Justin Wooden, RN in the intensive care unit (ICU) at James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital in Tampa, Fla. in a statement against the VHA policy. “Our patients are veterans. Many of our colleagues are veterans. They served this country, but now, it seems like the current administration is denying them health care, part of a bigger project to erase them completely. Our patients deserve this health care.