Nearly 80 Jewish organizations come together to support transgender youth

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are trying to block trans youth from getting gender-affirming care. They’ve proposed rules that would block transgender individuals, their families, and their health care providers from receiving or delivering life-saving care.

These proposed bans on gender-affirming care violate Jewish values.

The science is clear: gender-affirming care is effective, safe, and necessary. These proposed rules stand in the way of our faith-informed commandments by blocking trans people, their families, and their health care providers from accessing life-saving care.

Our country is facing a true health care crisis as costs soar, coverage suffers, and inequities deepen. These proposed rules do not reflect good-faith efforts to strengthen our public health programs; rather, they seek to entrench prejudice and discrimination.

We brought nearly 80 Jewish organizations together to tell CMS: these proposed rules violate our Jewish values.

The Jewish Abortion Access Coalition (JAAC) and Thrive: the Jewish Coalition to Defend Trans and LGBTQ+ Youth, on behalf of 79 Jewish organizations, submitted a comment to oppose the proposed rules restricting access to gender-affirming care of young people.

In the comment, we write that “our community’s conviction in the importance of access to gender-affirming care goes beyond religious principles; we are aligned with every major American medical and mental health association in recognizing this care as life-saving, evidence-based, and medically necessary.” We object to the proposed rules because they “seek to effectively criminalize the provision of this essential care. We are deeply concerned by the potential infringement on the expertise and ethical obligations of health care providers.”

Read the full comment.