First the Republican right came for abortion rights. Now they have set their sights on gender-affirming health care — especially when offered to minors — and the hospitals and physicians committed to delivering it.
Make no mistake, this isn’t about simple street protests — even here in Massachusetts. It’s about the harassment of dedicated health care providers and disruptions to hospital routines.
And outside Massachusetts, it’s not about reasonable discussions about medical ethics and the extent of parental consent.
No, instead Republican politicians are seeking to broaden their reach into what should be the very private relationship between doctor and patient. Taking their marching orders from right-wing media, podcasters, and bloggers, lawmakers in Oklahoma, Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Arizona, and elsewhere have moved to either cut off funding for or ban altogether any medical procedures aimed at helping young people with gender transitioning.
Advertisement
The three-pronged war — to deny funds, ban gender-transition health care, and harass those who offer such care — this week spurred three of the nation’s major health care organizations to urge Attorney General Merrick Garland “to investigate the organizations, individuals, and entities coordinating, provoking, and carrying out bomb threats and threats of personal violence against children’s hospitals and physicians across the U.S.”
The letter, signed jointly by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and Children’s Hospital Association, representing 220 hospitals nationwide, said, “From Boston to Akron to Nashville to Seattle, children’s hospitals, academic health systems, and physicians are being targeted and threatened for providing evidence-based health care. These attacks have not only made it difficult and dangerous for institutions and practices to provide this care, they have also disrupted many other services to families seeking care.”
Last month a Westfield woman was charged in federal court with making a false bomb threat to Boston Children’s Hospital, one of “dozens of hoax threats” to the hospital in connection with its work caring for transgender patients, according to Joseph R. Bonavolonta, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Division.
“The real victims in this case are the hospital’s patients, children with rare diseases, complex conditions, and those seeking emergency care who had to divert to other hospitals because of these hoax threats. Threatening the life of anyone who seeks any type of health service is a heinous act and will not be tolerated,” Bonavolonta said at the time of the arrest.
Advertisement
Hospital staff identified on social media sites as being involved in its transgender health program have been subject to threats and harassment, necessitating additional hospital security. The situation isn’t unique to Boston Children’s.
The letter from the three umbrella groups noted, “The attacks are rooted in an intentional campaign of disinformation, where a few high-profile users on social media share false and misleading information targeting individual physicians and hospitals.” They urged the Justice Department to help crack down on social media companies that haven’t done more to halt the spread of disinformation.
Boston Children’s for all its current difficulties is still among the lucky ones. No one here is threatening to halt its funding or prosecute its doctors. But around the country the discussion isn’t about what constitutes good medical practice or age-appropriate treatment. Rather it has become an effort to fan the flames of bigotry and pander for votes.
In Oklahoma this week, Republican Governor J. Kevin Stitt signed a bill to distribute $108 million in federal pandemic relief that included a provision denying funds to the state’s largest health care system — OU Health — including $39.4 million for a new pediatric mental health wing, unless Oklahoma Children’s Hospital immediately halted all gender-affirming health care.
Apparently the effort was driven by two podcasters who have become the darlings of many Oklahoma GOP lawmakers.
“We were not provided with a reasonable timeline to safely transition the care of our patients,” hospital system CEO Richard Lofgren wrote in an email to staff obtained by The Washington Post. “For our physicians, it is morally distressing to the guiding principles of our profession and our Hippocratic oath to not be able to provide a safe transition of care, but we have to comply with the law.”
Advertisement
About 100 adolescents currently receiving hormone therapy in the gender-affirming program at Oklahoma Children’s will have to seek it elsewhere. Lawmakers are now talking about a statewide ban on gender-affirming health care for minors.
The playbook is a familiar one. A recent study by the Williams Institute of the UCLA Law School found that more than 58,000 transgender youth and young adults are at risk of losing access to care. Some bans include criminal penalties for health care providers and for parents seeking only to provide care for their children.
Many of the bans are now the subject of lawsuits, aimed at keeping politicians out of doctors’ offices and from interfering in the parent-child relationship.
Reasonable people can debate what kinds of treatment might be appropriate at what age, what kind of screening should precede that treatment, and the role of parents in the process. But there should be no debate about punishment for those bent on disrupting hospital care.
In oases of sanity like Massachusetts, it’s not surprising that the battle is being waged not legislatively but in a more sinister manner — with bomb threats and harassment. Protecting those who deliver care and the hospitals in which they serve is essential — and it will take more than one well-timed prosecution to prove that the Justice Department is taking this assault on the health care system seriously.
Advertisement
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.
