Advocate Health is pulling back on its gender-affirming care for minors, joining a growing list of hospital systems in Illinois and across the country cutting the services amid threats to their federal funding.
Advocate Health has “revised our policy to no longer provide or prescribe gender-affirming care medications for patients under age 19,” Advocate said in a statement.
“We recognize that this is a deeply complex issue, and this decision was made after a multi-disciplinary team spent numerous hours carefully considering the options and outcomes,” Advocate said. “This new policy allows our hospitals, clinics and pharmacies to continue caring for all patients’ health needs in the changing federal environment.”
Advocate Health has 69 hospitals across six states, including Illinois. The Illinois part of that system, called Advocate Health Care, is one of the larger hospital systems in the state, with 11 hospitals and 200 sites of care.
The hospital system said in the statement that it has been reaching out to patients affected by the change to ensure they understand what it means for their care and to provide support. Advocate said it has also created a hotline to help affected patients “with a specific focus on providing any counseling support that may be needed or desired.”
One-by-one, Chicago-area hospitals have been curtailing their gender-affirming care for minors in recent months.
UI Health suspended gender-affirming surgeries for patients younger than 19 effective Aug. 1. In July, UChicago Medicine announced it was discontinuing all gender-affirming pediatric care. That same month Rush University System for Health “paused” hormonal care to new patients under the age of 18.
Lurie Children’s Hospital stopped offering gender-affirming surgeries for patients younger than 19 in February.
The rollbacks followed a series of actions by President Donald Trump and his administration. About a week after taking office in January, Trump issued an executive order taking aim at “chemical and surgical mutilation” of people under the age of 19.
That order threatened to withhold federal research grants as well as Medicaid and Medicare dollars from hospitals that provided gender-affirming care to minors, including medications to delay puberty, hormone therapy and surgery.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice said that it had sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics involved in “performing transgender medical procedures on children.”
“Medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology will be held accountable by this Department of Justice,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release at the time.
One subpoena, from the Department of Justice to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, requested names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and addresses of patients who received transgender care. That subpoena was recently revealed in court documents and reported on by The Washington Post.
Illinois and 15 other states filed a lawsuit Aug. 1, against Trump, Bondi and the Justice Department over their efforts to stop gender-affirming care for patients under 19.
The Trump administration is “intimidating providers into ceasing care through threats of civil and criminal prosecution,” according to the lawsuit filed in Massachusetts federal court. Illinois law prohibits discrimination by health care providers on the basis of gender identity and requires state-regulated health insurers to cover hormonal treatment for gender dysphoria.
Asher McMaher, executive director of Trans Up Front Illinois, expressed disappointment that yet another hospital system is pulling back its gender-affirming care for minors. Trans Up Front Illinois is a nonprofit advocacy organization that serves transgender and gender non-conforming youth and their support systems.
“No matter your religious affiliation, no matter the government pressure, we know this is proven to save the lives of children and that’s what these medical institutions are supposed to be doing,” McMaher said.
Earlier this month, Gov. JB Pritzker announced a new, free hotline to support LGBTQIA+ people, through which they can learn about their legal rights and be connected to health and social services. The hotline is available Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 855-805-9200 and resources can also be found at www.ilprideconnect.org.
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