Vanderbilt ceases some adult trans surgeries

After pausing sex-change surgeries for minors in 2022, Vanderbilt University Medical Center will stop offering certain forms of so-called “gender-affirming care” for adults, but some life-altering interventions for individuals suffering from gender dysphoria will continue.

In a Tuesday statement provided to The Christian Post, a spokesperson for the Nashville-based VUMC confirmed that it will cease providing “gender-affirming plastic surgeries for adults” due to “operational limitations and lack of surgical coverage.”

“Vanderbilt Health continues to provide nonsurgical gender-affirming care for adults 19 years and older,” the spokesperson stated. “Vanderbilt Health does not provide any gender-affirming care for patients younger than 19.”

VUMC’s decision comes as SB2118 makes its way through the Tennessee General Assembly. The proposal would prohibit the division of TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, from providing coverage or reimbursement for sex-change surgeries or the dispensing of puberty blockers for individuals struggling with their gender identity.

The phrase “medical procedure” in the bill means “surgically removing, modifying, altering, or entering into tissues, cavities, or organs of a human being; or (ii) prescribing, administering, or dispensing any puberty blocker, androgen, or estrogen to a human being.”

The medical center agreed in 2022 to stop performing body-mutilating surgeries on gender dysphoric teenagers following backlash from the public and elected officials. 

Jason Zachary, a Republican state representative, shared a letter in October 2022 from VUMC Deputy CEO and Chief Health Systems Officer Dr. C. Wright Pinson. 

“We are pausing gender affirmation surgeries on patients under 18″ while the hospital works to conduct a clinical review to ensure that its practices comply with recently issued guidelines from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, Pinson wrote in the letter.

Zachary and other members of the Tennessee House Republicans had previously written a letter asking the Vanderbilt Board of Directors to “take immediate action by halting all permanent gender transition surgeries being performed on minor children” and “honor all conscientious objectors whose religious beliefs prohibit their engagement in certain medical procedures.”

Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee also demanded an investigation into VUMC in 2022 after The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh released a report that said the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt “drugs, chemically castrates, and performs double mastectomies on minors.”

The conservative commentator shared a screenshot of an archived webpage outlining the services provided at the children’s hospital’s Pediatric Transgender Clinic, specifically “gender-affirming hormone therapy” and “pubertal blocking.” Walsh noted that “at some point in the last month, they removed explicit admission of this fact from their site.”

Walsh also shared a video of Vanderbilt health law expert Dr. Ellen Clayton stating that doctors who refuse to provide body-mutilating surgeries (removing breasts and genitals) due to their religious beliefs will face consequences. Clayton also referred to “conscientious objections” to such surgeries as “problematic.” 

“If you don’t want to do this kind of work, don’t work at Vanderbilt,” she said.

In the reply letter, Pinson claimed that “comments from videos posted on social media that are obtained at these kinds of events should not be construed as statements of VUMC policy. We do not condone discrimination against employees who choose to request accommodations.”

Pinson added that as many as five minors younger than 18 had gender surgeries performed on them, stating that “all were at least 16 years of age, none have received genital procedures and parental consent to these surgeries was obtained in all cases.” He insisted at the time that VUMC remained in compliance with Tennessee law that prohibits providing “hormone treatment for gender dysphoric or gender incongruent prepubertal minors.”

In 2023, Tennessee passed Senate Bill 1, which banned healthcare providers from performing genital mutilation surgeries or giving puberty-suppressing drugs to minors exhibiting gender dysphoria.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling and upheld the state law in a 6-3 decision, declaring that Senate Bill 1 does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.