Access to gender-affirming care in Michigan remains legal and accessible, advocates say, despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Wednesday in which the court’s conservative majority upheld Tennessee’s ban on some types of medical care for transgender minors.
That ban is similar to prohibitions currently in effect in more than 20 other states.
But LGBTQ advocacy groups stressed that care should continue uninterrupted in Michigan, where the state has expanded its civil rights protections to include gender identity and expression.
“While we have seen continued targeted attacks on the trans community in our state, it is crucial that trans youth and their loved ones know that gender affirming care is still safe and accessible and legal despite today’s ruling,” ACLU of Michigan staff attorney Jay Kaplan said in a statement. “It is also supported by every major medical, pediatric, and psychological association in the U.S. We call on our lawmakers and state leaders to do their jobs and join us as we continue our fight to preserve access to healthcare for all — especially the most vulnerable among us.”
Republican state legislators in Michigan have recently introduced legislation similar to Tennessee’s ban, but it's unlikely to pass while Democrats control the state Senate.
Representative Brad Paquette (R-Niles), sponsored legislation in May to protect “minors from chemical and surgical mutilation,” which is the same language the Trump administration has used to describe hormone therapy and other types of gender-affirming care for transgender minors. (Paquette did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. Representative Jason Woolford, a Republican who represents Livingston County and sponsored similar legislation in March, also did not immediately return a request for comment.)
Kaplan said any such ban would be challenged in court as a violation of the state’s expanded Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which affirms “legal protections for sexual orientation” and expands “coverage to include gender identity and expression.”
Emme Zanotti, a senior director with Equality Michigan Action Network, asked patients, families and healthcare workers to file a report with the group if they do experience any disruptions or “outages” in gender-affirming care in the state.
“Some politicians in Michigan who are not doctors, do not have transgender kids, who don't even have the decency or regard for keeping the children of our state fed while they are at school, already tried to emulate the style of ban we saw in this case,” Zanotti said at a press conference Wednesday. “They want Michigan to turn into Tennessee, who ranks in the bottom 10 of all U.S. states as it relates to health care. I'll be clear for them. Michigan does not go backward.”
Earlier this year, Attorney General Dana Nessel, also a Democrat, responded to an executive order from President Donald Trump’s administration that attempted to withhold federal funds from healthcare providers who offer gender-affirming care to transgender minors. (The order is one of a series the Trump administration has taken seeking to block such care.)
In a February letter to healthcare providers, Nessel told them that they have an “obligation to comply with Michigan laws, including those that prohibit discrimination" against individuals based on their sex, gender identity, or gender expression.
"Refusing healthcare services to a class of individuals based on their protected status, such as withholding the availability of services from transgender individuals based on their gender identity or their diagnosis of gender dysphoria, while offering such services to cisgender individuals, may constitute discrimination under Michigan law," Nessel said.
