Trans group urges UHealth to restart its gender-affirming surgery program
MIAMI - TransSocial, an advocacy group for the trans community, is delivering 40 letters to the acting president of the University of Miami.
"We have letters from elected officials, all of our local pride centers," explains Ashley and Morgan Mayfaire of TransSocial. They and their supporters are alarmed, urging UHealth to restart its gender-affirming surgery program.
"We know from clients of trans social that they're having their surgeries canceled, and they're also being denied the scheduling of gender-affirming surgeries which are medically necessary," Ashley said.
"It's not for children, it's for adults," Morgan said, "and it's medically necessary surgeries and treatments."
Morgan and Ashley telling us it's discrimination.
"Let's get real. It's the equivalent of denying someone a nose job. You know, the rest of you, you may be very happy with but maybe you're not happy with the way your nose looks. No one is saying you can't get that nose job. No one is saying you can't get a breast augmentation. So why is it that we're being policed, and we're being denied the care that we feel we need?" Morgan asked.
U-Health released a statement, saying "Last summer, in consultation with our partners at Jackson Health System and after careful consideration, we made the decision to discontinue the limited transgender surgical care we were offering."
"This decision was based on operational capacity at existing facilities, and we have worked with our physicians over the past year to minimize any impact on patients already in our care."
"As the field of transgender surgery grows in complexity and resource demands, offering less than the full suite of multidisciplinary surgical services these patients may need would be unfair to them, and inconsistent with the compassionate and quality patient care that remains our top priority at UHealth."
Morgan told us this is taking a toll.
"It's emotionally devastating. It's almost torturous. At that point," Morgan said.