California Dems weigh $26 MILLION fund for child sex changes after Trump bans practice

In a committee hearing on Monday, California Democrats weighed demands from advocacy groups for the state to issue $26 million in funding for access to sex change surgeries. This comes amid concerns about a multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall, as well as the Trump administration cracking down on sex changes for minors. 

Among those who spoke at the meeting was Dr Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who served as the Medical Director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which closed in July. She said that the "shock and disbelief was unimaginable" when they learned the program was being terminated. 

She said that the clinic was seeing just under 3,000 children at the time it was shuttered. She also said that the idea of "backfilling" hospitals would be too expensive, and that it would be "much less expensive to talk about setting aside money to help people provide this necessary care."

Also speaking at the meeting was JM Jaffe, who runs Lyon-Martin Health Services in San Francisco. The executive, who goes by they/them pronouns and is obviously a woman who has been taking testosterone and undergone sex change surgery, said that the clinic has helped 2,000 people get insurance to cover their sex changes. Jaffe said that all medical providers at the clinic are queer, 80 percent of staff are transgender, and 2/3 of their patients are transgender. Additionally, the clinic opened up to "trans youth" after Trump's cuts.

California authorized $15 million to assist in providing coverage for treatments that were affected by a final rule issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services in December. That rule stated that treatments such as puberty blockers or sex-change surgeries are unsafe. Among the first executive orders signed by Trump when he returned to the White House was one banning federal funding for child sex changes. 

The women’s advocacy group Women Are Real told the New York Post, "When millions in taxpayer dollars and irreversible medical decisions for children are on the line, lawmakers have a duty to hear all the evidence, not just one side." 

An agenda for the meeting stated, "Despite the current protections in state law for gender affirming care, and legal actions to protect Californians from adverse federal actions, the status of federal funding for gender affirming care is a significant threat to access for transgender Californians. Providers may be threatened with loss of eligibility to participate in federal programs, health plans may be threatened with loss of federal funding, and the availability of certain drugs for use as hormone therapy or puberty blockers for transgender Californians may be at risk."

"The Legislature may wish to consider developing a state-based framework that can ensure access to gender affirming care for Californians in the face of federal threats. The Legislature may also wish to consider whether existing state entities, like CalRx, could help secure access to gender affirming care drug products that could be at risk from federal threats."

Lawmakers have until June 15 to pass a state budget. Among the groups pushing for millions in funding for such procedures is Sacramento Pride, which wrote, "in a state budget of over $300 billion, our $26 million ask is a small investment to protect and stabilize access to care for transgender people and their families." 

Dozens of other groups, such as Planned Parenthood, the San Francisco Aids Foundation, PFLAG, and more, signed onto an open letter in February demanding that Governor Gavin Newsom support their $26 million ask.