20-03-2025
Advocates looking for 'actual strategy' for Bay State LGBTQ+ community
BOSTON (SHNS) – Advocates, health care professionals and lawmakers raised alarm Wednesday at federal rhetoric and actions aimed at the LGBTQ+ community, which they say will increasingly harm LGBTQ+ people and could upend their access to gender-affirming care.
'We're witnessing relentless attacks on trans lives, on bodily autonomy and the very existence of LGBTQ individuals. Hard-fought gains and health equity are at risk with successful government programs that save lives being threatened right now and being defunded,' Dallas Ducar, executive vice president of donor engagement and external relations at Fenway Health, said Tuesday at a briefing highlighting National LGBTQ+ Health Awareness Week.
'These aren't just policy debates. These are decisions that will determine whether people live or whether they die,' Ducar said.
Fenway Health is a federally-qualified health center. Of its 33,000 patients, half are LGBTQ, according to Ducar, who said the center is specifically worried about its research and education efforts, public health programs and system of gender-affirming care.
The federal government has taken action during the first months of President Donald Trump's second term to change LGBTQ-related policy in the United States, moving to roll back numerous policies that protect people from discrimination based on their gender identity or sexual orientation, ensure access to gender-inclusive care, and differentiate between 'gender identity' and 'sex' in the federal government.
Trump has said his orders are meant to defeat 'gender ideology.'
Brittany Charlton, founding director of Harvard University's LGBTQ Health Center for Excellence, tied impacts to the recent elimination of federal research grants focused on LGBTQ+ health, many of which she said are based in Massachusetts, and said the effects are already being felt here.
'Just in the last several days, several of my very large-scale, multi-million dollar grants that are funded by the federal government have been terminated,' Charlton said. 'Halting this work … is setting a really concerning precedent where scientific inquiry is going to be stifled by political rhetoric and potentially erasing our entire community from future research agendas.'
She said that while partnering with philanthropists and foundations can help groups continue to do this type of research, they still need aid from the state and feds to be able to 'fill this gap.'
Calls were loud Tuesday for allied legislators to do more. Taimur Khan, associate medical research director at the Fenway Institute, urged legislators to close gaps in existing care and use their platforms to advocate nationally for LGBTQ+ communities.
'Continue championing policies that make our health care system more inclusive. This means protecting the gains we have made, ensuring LGBTQ+ non-discrimination protections remain strong, and filling any gaps that remain. It means funding critical services like community health centers, HIV prevention and treatment programs, health care services for LGBTQ+ youth and outreach for seniors,' Khan said.
And Boston Medical Center GenderCare Center's research lead, Carl Streed, expressed confusion about what the Legislature is actively doing to protect programs from federal elimination. Streed said other issues, like Medicaid funding threats and the housing crisis, also impact LGBTQ+ patients served at BMC.
'We are probably in the best, safest jurisdiction right now, given the federal assault, but we can do more,' Streed said. 'I need guarantees that our funding is not going to get cut … I want to understand what's the actual strategy to safeguard our patients, to safeguard our community.'
The federal-local connection is on the minds of lawmakers like public health committee co-chair, Rep. Marjorie Decker, who said her team has been having conversations since November with leadership, colleagues and the Department of Public Health about how to ensure access to gender-affirming care remains in Massachusetts.
'I'm standing here and my heart is racing because quite honestly, like many of you, the level of anger that I feel here — in turn, that anger is only going to fuel the organizing that we will do to think out of the box, to collaborate and to make sure that at the end of the day, there will still be a system of access of care to everyone in our state,' Decker said.
Rep. Sam Montaño seconded the state Legislature's commitment to supporting LGBTQ+ rights, but flagged a lack of support they see in Congress.
'Where I'm not sure that we're so good is our federal delegation. And I think we've seen that through Seth Moulton, you can see that through other folks who haven't been outwardly supported, who have questioned this movement,' Montaño said, encouraging people to call their congressional leaders.
In November, Moulton made national headlines after he suggested that Democrats' support of allowing trans girls to play girls' sports was tied to the party's presidential election loss. Gov. Maura Healey, among numerous other Massachusetts Democrats, publicly spoke against Moulton's commentary.
Other personal reflections from lawmakers, including Sen. William Brownsberger and Reps. John Patrick Lewis and John Moran, expressed broad support in the Legislature for the LGBTQ+ community. Moran spoke about his positive experience receiving care tailored to him, as a member of the LGBTQ community.
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