OutCenter, MI LGBT Advocates Respond to Corewell Health Decision to Cease Gender Affirming Care for Young People
UPDATE, February 12, 2025: Corewell has announced that they have lifted the pause on providing gender-affirming care to new patients under 19. Read more at Erin in the Morning.
In partnership with a coalition of Michigan LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, OutCenter Southwest Michigan has signed on to an open letter addressed to Corewell Health’s Board of Directors and Executive Leadership. This letter is in response to Corewell’s decision to limit gender-affirming care for young people.
Please read the full letter attached as a PDF. See also OutCenter’s message to our community below.
To our friends and community:
Our country has been inundated by the promulgation of Executive Orders that exhibit heavy-handed legal overreach and, frankly, backwards perspectives on science and society.
Some of these orders, through threats of the removal of federal aid, have attempted to erase the medical care, safety, and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, especially trans and non-binary people, including gender expansive people under the age of 18.
Here in Michigan, it is important to remember our rights within our state, which maintains protection for LGBTQ+ people. The Elliot Larsen Civil Rights Act states that opportunities, accommodations, and services cannot be denied to people on the basis of “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression.”
We’ve seen recent disturbing news from our constituencies that some Michigan organizations are, unfortunately, preemptively acquiescing with the federal orders that are already being challenged in the courts. According to Dana Nessel, Michigan’s attorney general, “access to federal funds does not relieve Michigan healthcare facilities and providers of the obligation to comply with Michigan laws, including those that prohibit discrimination… Refusing healthcare services to a class of individuals based on their perceived 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.”
If you are experiencing blockages, stoppages, interruptions, and denials of gender-affirming care and therapy, the ACLU of Michigan, Stand with Trans, and Equality Michigan are partnering to ensure that no one experiencing healthcare discrimination has to be alone. Visit bit.ly/migacform to learn more.
Further, you can also report incidents to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, at michigan.gov/mdcr.
It is important for us to stand strong together at this time, and standing up involves standing for our rights. Let’s make our voices heard and challenge inappropriate overreach and the threats to the safety of our communities.