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Save Gender-Affirming & Trans Healthcare at UCLA!
The University of California (UC) is signaling that they are willing to use the elimination of gender-affirming and trans healthcare as a bargaining chip in negotiations over Trump’s unlawful revocation of $584 million in federal grants and unprecedented threat of a $1 billion fine based on falsehoods about University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). We demand that the UCLA Chancellor, UC Regents, Governor Newsom, and California Attorney General Bonta fight this extortion and protect LGBTQIA health and healthcare!
The Trump Administration is demanding that UCLA cease all gender-affirming care in UCLA hospitals and UCLA Health, as part of a $1-billion settlement demand that Gov. Gavin Newsom has described as “disgusting political extortion.” These efforts to eliminate gender-affirming care for trans people are rooted in vengeance and dogma, not in science; medical support for transitioning sex is both well-established and effective for young people and adults. Yet, instead of fighting in court for the reinstatement of research funding that the Trump Administration has illegally frozen–a legal avenue that has proven successful when faculty members have sued on their own behalf–the UC Regents have begun negotiating with the federal government behind closed doors, and have made no commitment to preserve gender-affirming care or to reject any of the federal government’s anti-trans demands.
When other universities have negotiated rather than legally challenging these demands, the settlements have been devastating for trans healthcare and educational access. Brown University, for instance, agreed to the Trump Administration’s demands to cease gender-affirming care for minors and to discriminate against trans students in housing, athletics, and access to bathrooms. Any capitulation on anti-trans demands at UCLA would violate state law, abandon thousands of patients who already face significant hurdles in healthcare access, and force healthcare workers to violate their oath to ‘do no harm.’ The impact on patients in Southern California will be enormous: As the second-largest hospital system in the state, UCLA runs five hospitals and 280 community clinics across the region, and provides 3.8 million outpatient clinic visits a year. For 36 years, UCLA has been honored as one of the highest-quality care health systems in the country and was ranked the #1 hospital in California in 2025. It will not maintain this status if it turns its back on the LGBTQIA community and, specifically, all of its trans patients.
If the University of California capitulates to Trump’s escalating demands, the consequences will be devastating for trans healthcare access for UC workers and community members across the state. The capitulation of one of the largest healthcare systems in the state will facilitate attacks on other UC and non-UC healthcare systems. Given the national leadership of UC Health and the State of California in gender affirming care, UC’s betrayal and dismantling of gender-affirming care would risk unraveling care across the country. Increased demand for services elsewhere would immediately intensify the already-high workloads of community providers. Ending this medically necessary care would curtail access to healthcare for UC students and employees. Clinicians at UC Health would be forced to commit malpractice by refusing evidence-based medicine to patients who need gender-affirming care—not only violating their ethical responsibilities but also risking their medical licensure. UCLA’s own Williams Institute has published a report about the grave consequences of banning gender-affirming care for trans youth. The Trump administration’s demand goes even further in proposing to curtail employee access.
We demand:
No cuts, restrictions, or limitations on gender-affirming care at UC
No capitulation to anti-trans demands
The State of California already sued the Trump administration over its moves to cut off medical care from trans youth, which have led to thousands of patients losing their healthcare at Stanford Health and Children’s Hospital LA. This attack on UCLA is a terrifying escalation: it is the first demand that a university health system cease gender-affirming care for patients of any age. Trump’s demands are driven by fundamentalist Christian lawfare groups like the Alliance for Defending Freedom and are riddled with false claims about science and research. UC does not look to groups like this for any other healthcare choice, and should not start now. This is yet another assault on UC’s medical and public health research done to improve the health of our communities. If UCLA Health and the UC Regents capitulate on this demand, it will abet the far right’s escalating campaign to expel trans and gender-nonconforming people from public life.
As UC clinicians, medical experts, faculty members, students, and staff, as well as community members who understand the vital role that UC healthcare plays for our entire state, we demand that the UC Regents follow state law and our public university’s ethical responsibility to continue providing equal access to medical care to all Californians.
