Trans youth have struggled to access affirming health care across the region after Pennsylvania’s biggest providers quietly stopped offering gender-affirming services to minors — a decision made by major hospital systems in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and central Pennsylvania following threats by the Trump administration.

Despite openly scaling back gender-affirming care for people under the age of 19 in May and then completely suspending it on June 30, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) — Pittsburgh’s largest provider — was subpoenaed by the Trump administration in July. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is supposedly investigating health care fraud under the False Claims Act and calls for gender-affirming surgeries, which are not typically performed on minors, to be considere

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