Daniel Heumann was relaxing in his parents’ Mansfield backyard on a recent summer morning, anticipating a family bike ride later that day.
With hens pecking in their coop, vegetable beds sprawling on the opposite side, and dogs chasing each other in a flower garden, the scene is reminiscent of New England. With his goofy smile and hands in his pockets, Heumann could pass for any twenty-year-old talking about helping his dad construct the big brick firepit.
However, Heumann claimed that his current state is the outcome of eight years of gender-affirming care at Connecticut Children’s, which enabled him to be true to himself.
The reason I’m here, he continued, is because of my transition at age 7, my initiation of puberty blockers at age 9, my testosterone shots, and my top surgery. Without that care, I would have most likely killed myself because I was so uncomfortable and you feel like your body is changing in ways you don’t want it to.
In an executive order earlier this year, President Donald Trump claimed that doctors were disfiguring youngsters who wanted to change their gender. Hospitals all around the nation soon started discontinuing their gender care initiatives.
These included Connecticut Children’s in Hartford, where Heumann’s care continued at the age of 11, and Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, where he initially started transitioning.
Heumann, a transgender advocate and a student in the University of Connecticut’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program, is currently a patient at UConn Health’s gender clinic for adults. However, he expressed concern for other trans children whose care stopped abruptly.
“I know people who have been depending on Connecticut Children’s for their care, and they are afraid because that’s how I was when I was younger,” he added. I mean, children are saved by this treatment.
Politically driven choices
After years of therapy, Heather Pages’ 11-year-old trans daughter was ready to begin hormone therapy at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital in New Haven.
According to Page, she is approaching puberty, growing an Adam’s apple, her voice deepening, and her bone structure expanding. In order for her to continue living comfortably in her own skin, we wish to counteract some of the impacts that biological male puberty will have.
The family then had to hurry to find a doctor to take care of their children after Yale closed its gender affirmation program.
Page was able to get her daughter, who asked to be kept unnamed, an appointment at Boston Children’s Medical Center, which is three hours away from her home in Bethel, Connecticut.
According to Page, her child’s doctors at Yale were all in one place and could interact with one another regarding her treatment. However, we now have to piece things together, which results in a different experience and carries a different danger. Thus, I’m quite worried.
Additionally, Boston is not covered by their insurance.
After Yale stopped supplying estrogen injections for her 17-year-old trans daughter, Melissa Combs, a mother in Farmington, Connecticut, is likewise frantically trying to locate a provider.
“People should be concerned about politically motivated decisions about evidence-based, medically necessary, and legally protected care in Connecticut,” Combs said, referring to the politically influenced judgments made by Yale New Haven Health administration.
A choice that is not taken lightly
The U.S. Department of Justice subpoenaed providers who perform transgender treatments on children and youth in July. Soon after, the gender affirmation programs for children and youth were discontinued at both Connecticut hospitals.
Yale noted in a statement that trans patients would still receive mental health therapy and that the decision to discontinue administering hormones was not made hastily.
According to Connecticut Children’s, it followed the advice of legal and medical professionals when making the tough decision to discontinue its gender care program.
But up until recently, medical professionals who offer gender-affirming care have argued for the right to keep doing so.
Lawmakers in Connecticut debated and eventually failed to adopt a bill earlier this year that would have protected healthcare providers who provide gender-affirming and reproductive services.
According to Dr. Priya Phulwani of Connecticut Children’s, who spoke in support of the bill in March, there are challenging times and the rights of various groups are being undermined nationwide, including medical access to gender-affirming care.
Providers like me will be able to use telemedicine to assist patients in jurisdictions where in-person hormone therapy care is completely prohibited thanks to this legislation. She said that it will shield my coworkers and I from aggressive out-of-state prosecution.
Despite a bipartisan vote in the Judiciary committee, the bill was eventually not given a floor vote.
Transition remorse is another contentious political topic that is being brought up nationwide by the federal government’s policy on gender-affirmative care.
According to Trump’s January executive order on transgender care, many children who receive treatment later come to regret being mutilated.
However, Heumann, a transgender advocate from Connecticut, stated that he cannot regard gender-affirming surgery as mutilation.
Heumann remarked, “I was just doing something to feel comfortable in my body.”
According to him, a group of professionals, including psychiatrists, endocrinologists, surgeons, and pediatric specialists, were consulted before the decision was made.
It takes time to accomplish. According to him, it occurs after years of doubting your identity and gender, followed by years of talking with medical professionals. This shift has been carefully considered and extensively debated.
Gender-affirming care data
Kinnon In a recent New York Times article and a longer follow-up article in Substack, detransition researcher Ross MacKinnon stated that early research on transition regret revealed rates of 1 6%, primarily among adult transgender women who underwent a complete surgical transition.
Up to 10% of young patients stopped or reversed transgender treatment, according to more recent studies from Finland, the United Kingdom, and Norway.
Both facts must be taken seriously: that many people find that gender-affirming care saves their lives, and that some people suffer from severe regret, loss, or injury. Sadly, attempts to comprehend and resolve these difficulties are being hampered by the political environment in the United States right now, MacKinnon wrote.
Researchers emphasize that this data should be utilized to enhance patient support and informed consent rather than to promote restrictions. The author was MacKinnon.
I’m present today.
June, 17, Melissa Combs’ daughter, stated that she does not yet have a doctor and that her hormone medicines expire in three months due to hospitals closing tragender care.
She also doesn’t think of herself as a male. She replied, showcasing her long, smooth purple hair, “She’s a woman.”
June said, “My mom has been doing some really good hair dye.” She also mentioned packing to go to college in New York to study filmmaking.
Micah Heumann, the head of UConn’s undergraduate research office and Daniel’s father back in Mansfield, stated that Daniel didn’t change his gender at random. He claimed that despite years of familial pressure to accept his biological gender, the child was unhappy.
Knowing that Daniel was having identity issues and had always identified as a guy since we can even remember, Micah explained that he changed his name and pronouns at the age of seven after hours and hours of study.
Daniel claimed that he is able to be himself because of his parents’ support and the gender-affirming treatment he still receives from a separate physician.
He said, “My name is Daniel, and I’m here today.”
Michayla Savitt of Connecticut Public helped with this report.
The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is open to anyone in crisis, including youth.
