Lambda Legal today (Tuesday, Aug. 11) launched Beyond the Prescription: Why Care Matters, a storytelling campaign featuring healthcare providers reflecting on their role in caring for their patients, and the harms of restrictions on medical care for transgender patients. Through audio recordings and photography, a Lambda Legal press release explains, “the campaign amplifies the voices of medical professionals and puts a human face on what is at stake when politicians, rather than doctors, make medical decisions.”
Two plaintiffs from E.N. v. Kehoe — Dr. Michael Donovan, MD, a family medicine physician, and Nicole Carr, FNP-C, a board-certified family nurse practitioner specializing in women’s health, HIV/AIDS care, and transgender patient care — are at the center of the new informational campaign. Donovan and Carr are both providers at Southampton Community Healthcare in Missouri, and they were plaintiffs in Lambda Legal’s challenge to Missouri’s Senate Bill 49, “a discriminatory law that bars transgender adolescents from receiving gender-affirming medical care, prohibits Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming medical care for transgender people of any age, and penalizes healthcare professionals who provide such care to minors with the loss of their medical licenses,” according to Lambda Legal’s press release. The Missouri Supreme Court upheld SB 49 in January this year, allowing the state to continue denying transgender adolescents access to gender-affirming medical care and preventing transgender Missourians of any age from receiving Medicaid coverage for the same care.
Nora Huppert, senior attorney at Lambda Legal, said, “These dedicated professionals devote their lives to caring for their patients. Beyond the Prescription: Why Care Matters puts their expertise and their commitment to patients at the center of this conversation.”
The new campaign features Donovan and Carr responding to questions that “explore the foundations of the doctor-patient relationship and the real-world consequences of restrictions on patient care,” the press release said. “While rooted in their experiences, the campaign speaks to healthcare providers across the country who are navigating the mounting consequences of restrictions on gender affirming care for transgender patients.”
At least 27 states have enacted bans specifically targeting gender-affirming medical care for transgender people, restricting access to treatments for transgender adolescents and, in many cases, transgender adults as well. Just this week, the Trump administration announced a new rule banning Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care for trans youth.
“These laws have created a national landscape in which healthcare providers are increasingly prohibited from providing important care. Beyond the Prescription: Why Care Matters is designed to amplify trusted medical voices in that fight,” the press release said.
— Tammye Nash
