LGBTQ Health advisory board accuses medical center of ‘violence’
The Vanderbilt Program for LGBTQ Health recently laid off five staff members and eliminated its “Trans Buddy Program” following $300 million in budget cuts at the school’s medical center.
“The Vanderbilt University Medical Center Program for LGBTQ Health is an innovative effort to improve healthcare for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) adults,” according to its website.
The five staff members who lost their jobs included the director, assistant director, and the coordinator of the “Trans Buddy Program,” according to The Vanderbilt Hustler.
“The Trans Buddy Program paired transgender patients with a support volunteer who could provide emotional, informational and procedural support during healthcare encounters, free of charge,” the outlet reported.
The Tennessee Transgender Task Force criticized the decision in a June 27 Instagram post, accusing VUMC of harming “an already marginalized community.”
“At this time, when we should be supporting our transgender and larger LGBTQ community members, VUMC Administration continues to show they are not willing to help us,” the group wrote.
“The implications will be felt throughout the community as the Program was able to connect many people who already have hesitations about interacting with the healthcare complex due to sexual orientation or gender identity to culturally competent and affirming care inside or outside of the VUMC system,” it wrote.
The task force also posted an open letter written by the Vanderbilt Program for LGBTQ Health Community Advisory Board telling the medical center its “silence is itself violence.”
“Even if there are ongoing efforts and strategic maneuvering to maintain the care the Center offers outside of our earshot, the institution’s tight-lip about those efforts with the communities and persons it otherwise seeks to support is, in and of itself, a perpetuation of the hurts they experience elsewhere-and with no small irony, at the very place that has put itself forward as a shelter from that storm,” the letter states.
The layoffs follow the medical center’s recent announcement that around 650 employees were cut “in response to budgetary actions in Washington D.C. that impacted areas related to government-sponsored research and patient care,” according to The Vanderbilt Hustler.
However, a VUMC spokesperson told The Hustler less than two percent of the center’s staff were cut.
“VUMC sees more than 3.5 million patient visits each year and remains committed to meeting the needs of all who depend on us for health care. To accommodate the growing demand for care, VUMC is continuing to hire frontline clinical staff for the opening of the 180-bed Jim Ayers Tower later this year,” the spokesperson said.
The medical center’s transgender clinic has garnered widespread attention in recent years following Daily Wire host Matt Walsh’s high-profile investigation.
“Vanderbilt drugs, chemically castrates, and performs double mastectomies on minors,” Walsh wrote in a thread on X in 2022.
In addition, Walsh revealed that a staff member had privately referred to gender-affirming medications and surgeries as “moneymakers.”
In response, Tennessee legislators passed a law prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law last month, the Daily Wire reported.
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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Stethoscope on LGBT Flag; sasirin pamai/Canva Pro