Overview:
A protest was held at Baystate Franklin Medical Center to demonstrate against Baystate Health's decision to pause gender-affirming care for minors. The decision was made due to proposed federal regulations that limit Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals providing gender-affirming care to youth. The protesters demanded that Baystate Health reverse its decision and restore gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. The demonstration was peaceful and none of the protesters were arrested.
GREENFIELD — A protest at Baystate Franklin Medical Center on Wednesday night regarding Baystate Health’s decision to pause gender-affirming care for minors was marred with some rain and wind, but Ali Wicks-Lim reminded the group of 15 demonstrators that transgender youth need gender-affirming care on rainy days, too.
Wicks-Lim, a Montague resident, is the co-organizer of a mobile art installation designed to protest Baystate Health’s February decision to no longer provide hormone medications or puberty blockers for patients under the age of 18. The protest art was in Springfield previously, came to Greenfield for the first time on Wednesday and went down to Northampton later that night.
The large banner depicts a blue bus running over a set of stuffed dolls meant to emulate children, and reads “Baystate Bows to Trump.” The display is meant to be a metaphor for the idea that “Baystate Throws Trans Kids Under the Bus” by not treating patients under 18 with gender-affirming care.
“We’re here because when Baystate was faced with a choice to lose some funding or throw trans kids under the bus, they made the decision to throw trans kids under the bus,” Wicks-Lim said. “They bowed to Trump, and that is a dangerous step to take in the world that we are in right now, to let a fascist government decide our health care for our children.”
A Baystate spokesperson previously said the decision was made based on proposed federal regulations that limit Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals providing gender-affirming care to youth.
“After careful consideration and thorough analysis, we have made the decision to pause gender-affirming medication care for patients under age 18 while continuing to provide gender-affirming mental health counseling for children and adolescents,” a statement from Baystate Health after the Springfield protest reads. “Baystate Health is working with the impacted patients and their families to transfer their care to a trusted health care organization in our region, or another provider that our patients and their families choose.”
In December, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced two proposed rules that limit youth access to gender-affirming care. The first rule prohibits Medicare and Medicaid-enrolled hospitals from providing hormone treatments and puberty blockers. The second rule prevents Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) reimbursements for any providers offering such care to transgender youth.
Both proposals are outlined in President Donald Trump’s executive order signed in January 2025. The document instructs that agency to “take all appropriate actions to end” gender-affirming care, including changing Medicare and Medicaid conditions of participation and coverage.
In April 22, other states, including Massachusetts, were able to get a federal court order blocking this attempt by the Trump administration to restrict gender-affirming care, but the Baystate Health policy still stands.
When asked about the response from Baystate Health following the Springfield protest, Wicks-Lim said Thursday that they’re not unsympathetic to the situation the federal government has put the hospital in.
“We just maintain that the decisions need to be made by health care practitioners,” Wicks-Lim said, adding that it can’t be made by upper management.
As part of the demonstration, Wicks-Lim read demands for Baystate Health to “immediately reverse its decision and restore gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors; issue a public apology to the families it abandoned; affirm its commitment to evidence-based, non-discriminatory care for all patients; [and] immediately cease participation in Pride season events until its policies are in alignment with the needs and rights of trans youth.”
Each attendee on Wednesday was able to share their thoughts on Baystate Health’s policy and the wider implications of not having access to gender-affirming care. Some detailed the impact of gender-affirming care that they’ve seen as health care workers, and others shared how they’ve supported their peers through times of mental health crisis.
One of the speakers, Northampton resident Mara Levi, said concern for transgender youth goes beyond those whose care has been transferred, but also for those who will not have access to this care if another provider can’t absorb the new patient load, or if the health care provider is out of reach, both financially and physically.
“When the largest health care organization in western [Massachusetts] denies gender-affirming care to trans youth, it stigmatizes the care trans kids desperately need,” Levi said.
According to a 2022 study cited in an article by the University of Washington School of Public Health, access to hormones or puberty blockers for people ages 13 to 20 is “associated with a 60% lower odds of moderate to severe depression and a 73% lower odds of self-harm or suicidal thoughts compared to youth who did not receive these medications over a 12-month period.” This article notes that this study aligns with other research that gender-affirming care has a significant impact on transgender youth mental health.
Demonstrator Naia Day-Tenerowicz of Springfield explained her own experience as a gender-queer individual with friends who identify as transgender or queer, but did not have access to gender-affirming care.
“I spent my teen years doing my best to support those friends and often having calls with them in the middle of the night to talk them out of self-harm or suicide,” she said. “It is so horrible to grow up and be treated as a person that you’re not, and to have your body be changing in a way that makes you feel worse and worse every day.”
Day-Tenerowicz shared how she saw a friend receive gender-affirming care, and that “things changed so fast for him,” as he started to feel better. Day-Tenerowicz feels a moral obligation to stand up and fight when it comes to this issue.
Security and police response
While not the first time protesters have demonstrated at a Baystate hospital, Wednesday’s event in Greenfield marked the first time they encountered police in the process.
Half an hour after the demonstration began on Baystate Franklin’s property next to its sign at the corner of High and Beacon streets, hospital security spoke to Wicks-Lim. Not long after, four officers with the Greenfield Police Department arrived and spoke with both Wicks-Lim and Baystate security while the other demonstrators either recorded the interactions or stood by the art display, having conversations.
Ultimately, none of the protesters were arrested and none of them were issued no-trespass orders. The demonstrators packed up the art display and left the property just before 7 p.m., and then moved to King Street in Northampton, on the sidewalk outside the Baystate Health & Wellness Center. There, Wicks-Lim said participants did not encounter any security or police officers.
Reflecting on the action in Greenfield, Wicks-Lim said they see the escalation of police involvement as not a “small decision,” and they’d like to hear from Baystate Health about the decision to stop gender-affirming care, and not have police be called in the process.
Calls and emails to Baystate Health spokespeople were not returned on Thursday.
