October 25, 2024
SAHM Supports Protecting Access to Comprehensive Clinical Care for Transgender and Nonbinary Adolescents and Young Adults, and the Clinicians Who Provide Such Care
The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM) embraces our professional responsibility to ensure health, well-being, and equity for all adolescents and young adults, including for transgender and nonbinary youth. This responsibility includes protecting access to healthcare for gender-diverse adolescent and young adult patients.
As stated in a 2023 Journal of Adolescent Health (JAH) article titled, “Adolescent Providers’ Experiences of Harassment related to Delivering Gender-Affirming Care,” “Gender affirmation refers to the social, psychological, legal, and medical affirmation of one’s gender identity and is critical to the health and well-being of transgender and non-binary adolescents.”
SAHM strongly supports providing and protecting access to healthcare for gender-diverse patients. SAHM reaffirms its “Statement on the Politicization of Gender-Affirming Care and Threats of Violence Against Clinicians.”
SAHM calls on community members, health professionals, institutional leaders, and policymakers to work to bring about and support legislation that protects transgender and non-binary adolescents and young adults, their families, and the clinicians who serve them. AYAs deserve access to care, and clinicians, with their experience, expertise, and scientific backing, should be able to provide such care to all adolescents and young adults, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, racial and ethnic background, or the state in which they live.
We reaffirm our recommendations to protect access to healthcare for gender-diverse patients including transgender and nonbinary adolescents and young adults, as follows:
- Create protective laws and policies to ensure continued provision of healthcare and oppose restrictive laws and policies, coercive tactics, and targeted harassment campaigns that obstruct provision of such healthcare.
- Educate stakeholders and policymakers on the evidence supporting healthcare for gender-diverse adolescent and young adult patients and the centrality of adolescents and young adults and their families in making informed health decisions.
- Affirm health system-level commitments to provide healthcare for transgender and nonbinary adolescents and young adults by providing accurate information to all gender-diverse adolescents and young adults.
- Work to counter misinformation and the targeted harassment and intimidation of clinicians, including working to ensure the safety of clinicians and clinical programs to provide care.
- Call on policymakers to enact and implement protections to safeguard the personal security and professional careers of clinicians who provide healthcare for gender-diverse adolescents and young adults.
- Engage and mobilize community members to support legal protections for access to medically necessary care for gender-diverse adolescents and young adults, and hold elected officials accountable for policies that are contrary to evidence-based care.
SAHM is here to support all of our SAHM members, all AYA health professionals, and all AYA youth. We will remain steadfast in our work to ensure every child has access to health care.
With gratitude,
Bonnie Halpern-Felsher
SAHM President