Should trans people be allowed to live?
Vanderbilt University Medical Center agitated this question Feb. 20, 2026, when it announced that it would be ending all new gender-affirming surgeries for trans adults. These surgeries intend to reconstruct parts of trans individuals’ bodies to be in accordance with their gender identity to relieve discomfort associated with gender dysphoria, which many trans people face. The surgeries are one aspect of a wide range of options for gender-affirming care (GAC) which has been repeatedly shown to be life-saving for many trans individuals. GAC surgeries have extremely low regret rates, less than 2%, and patients report high satisfaction. Furthermore, alongside other forms of GAC, affirming surgeries are considered medically necessary for trans individuals by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health to resolve mental health issues related to gender dysphoria. Yet VUMC disregarded these facts in its decision.
This announcement follows an extensive wave of attacks on trans rights across America in recent years. Dozens of states have laws banning GAC for minors, with 39.4% of trans youth living in states that have stripped them of this basic right. On the federal level, the Trump Administration enacted rules to heavily restrict trans Americans under 19 from accessing any GAC just eight days into his second term. And those are only the policies that relate to healthcare. In recent years, jurisdictions have implemented a barrage of policies discriminating against trans people, ranging from bathroom bans and restrictions on expression in schools to limits on participation in sports and attacks on legal recognition. In 2026 alone, over 700 anti-trans bills have already been proposed, eight of which have passed.
The purpose of these laws is clear; they attempt to eradicate trans people. GAC bans criminalize care that reduces depression and suicide rates among trans people, thereby actively demanding their death. Other anti-trans laws harm the mental health of trans individuals and attempt to extinguish them from public society. In light of this legal onslaught, experts at the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security warned that the United States was in the “early-to-mid stages of a genocidal process against trans and nonbinary and intersex people.” Some political figures do not even attempt to hide their intentions; commentator Michael Knowles openly proclaimed that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely” in his speech at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference.
We are amid a genocide against transgender Americans, an unrelenting push for atrocity by the government; yet VUMC’s decision was made independently. While VUMC did have to stop GAC surgeries for minors in 2022 following a change in Tennessee law and had to comply with Trump’s 2025 executive order restricting care for those under 19, the current decision was not made to comply with any existing legislation. VUMC alleged that “operational limitations and lack of surgical coverage” prompted its decision to cease GAC surgeries. The Tennessee legislature is currently considering a law to prohibit TennCare (Tennessee’s version of Medicaid) from covering GAC, but this bill hasn’t passed yet, and a similar bill failed to pass in 2023. Regardless, VUMC currently has no legal requirement to contribute to the onslaught of policies targeting trans lives.
VUMC is a key healthcare hub in Tennessee, which thousands of trans individuals rely on for basic care. Rather than upholding its medical responsibility to serve its patients, VUMC is making an active decision to hurt the communities it is meant to serve. their medical responsibility to serve their patients, VUMC is making an active decision to hurt the communities it is meant to serve.
Unfortunately, there is a precedent for such attacks. In 2025, VUMC laid off some of its staff working in its program for LGBTQ Health and ended the Trans Buddy Program, which supported trans patients on their healthcare journeys. The Vanderbilt trans community is far too familiar with attacks on our rights.
There is a plethora of culture war narratives against trans people, attempting to make arguments against our rights. I can personally attest to victimization and harassment inspired by these narratives, and many others can as well. Forty-seven percent of trans people have experienced sexual assault in their lifetime, and nearly 10% have been physically assaulted. Furthermore, 82% of trans employees face discrimination or harassment in the workplace. The data is clear: these attacks, whether from political agitators or politicians, lead to violence and suffering.
Not only do transphobic narratives that try to frame us as threats to society inflict clear damage upon our community; they deny consenting adults the right to healthcare. U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn rallied against GAC by falsely labeling it “child mutilation,” and some other political figures share that perspective, emphasizing a supposed need to protect children from this healthcare. Of course, research does show that GAC is life-saving to trans minors as well, but at the current moment, the debate is not even on children’s right to GAC, but that of adults.
Human rights should not even be up for debate. And the institutions of society meant to serve the public — such as hospitals and universities — should never malign their mission with complicity in a genocide. VUMC must do better. And as students of the Vanderbilt community, we must demand that of VUMC.
A petition has been circulating to urge VUMC to reverse its decision, and as of publication, it has nearly 700 signatories. I urge you to sign this petition to stand up for the rights of the trans community.
Even for non-trans individuals, this issue is of utmost importance. It echoes the deconstruction of reproductive rights and resulting cascade of detrimental consequences following the infamous 2022 Dobbs decision. While VUMC’s decision was not one made by a government — and is an issue where student activism has potential for change — it happened in the context of the societal trends we are seeing, being fueled by demagoguery in our political discourse and legislation. If this political movement of hate can cause a hospital to cease from providing life-saving care, it can harm anyone and everyone.
As the theologian Martin Niemöller warned in his famous quote “first they came” about the Nazi rise to power, movements like that of the Nazis are fueled by the inactivity of bystanders to atrocities against communities they do not belong to. Indeed, trans individuals were also a target of the Nazi regime, and one of its first actions in power in 1933 was destroying the Institute of Sexology, an academic foundation researching trans and gay rights.
Attacks on liberty and life are not new. They’ve been around for centuries. And this current attack on trans rights has been ongoing for years. Yet each of us as individuals in civic society have the power to decide what to do in the face of injustice: to remain silent or to take action.
And as anyone with even a basic sense of human empathy can agree to, yes, trans people should be allowed to live.
