Relman Colfax Releases Summary of State Antidiscrimination Laws; Shows Many States Require Gender-Affirming Care in Public Accommodations

Relman Colfax recently released a new resource, “State Antidiscrimination Laws and Gender-Affirming Care in the Wake of the Trump Administration Executive Orders.” The resource is intended to empower families, advocacy groups, allies, medical professionals, hospital administrators, and state officials with the knowledge and tools needed to protect and uphold the rights of the transgender community and is timely for April’s Fair Housing Month and ongoing attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. In many instances, state law does require providers who have offered gender-affirming care in the past to continue to offer it, particularly where they offer the same treatments to cis-gender patients. 

While the explainer has robust legal information on gender-affirming medical care, housing advocates may find the category of “general antidiscrimination” useful for defending trans and LGBTQ+ clients in housing access. The resource is especially crucial as there is confusion after two recent executive orders issued by the Trump Administration that threaten federal funding for hospitals and medical clinics providing gender-affirming care to transgender children and young adults. In particular, the explainer includes: 

• An overview of state laws protecting transgender individuals' access to gender-affirming care in the 18 states whose Attorneys General have recently made public statements or taken legal action in support of these rights, complete with an appendix outlining those laws. 

• Contextual analysis of how state laws interact with the federal executive orders and the legal basis for providers' continued obligations to deliver gender-affirming care under these state protections. 

Download the explainer PDF here.