Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) has confirmed it will no longer perform “gender-affirming” plastic surgeries on adult patients, citing “operational limitations and lack of surgical coverage.”
VUMC said that while it will no longer offer sex-change surgeries for adults, it will continue to provide “nonsurgical gender-affirming care for adults 19 years and older,” according to a statement the medical provider sent to multiple media outlets.
“We are in the process of contacting our patients regarding these changes,” VUMC added.
While “gender-affirming” care is legal for adults in the Volunteer State, a bill (HB 2498/SB 2118) that would ban such treatments from being covered or reimbursed for by TennCare is currently being debated in the Tennessee General Assembly.
Under Tennessee law, healthcare providers are prohibited from performing or administering to underage children “gender-affirming” medical procedures or treatments – including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and sex-change surgeries – for the purpose of enabling the child to identify with the opposite gender.
That law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision last year in the landmark case U.S. v. Skrmetti.
Since then, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), which represents more than 11,000 physician members as a leading authority on cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery, has since disavowed sex-change surgeries for minors, declaring in its official Position Statement that the evidence base supporting sex-change procedures for children and adolescents to be “low quality/low certainty.”
Further, with regard to sex-change surgeries for minors as a treatment for gender dysphoria, ASPS wrote in its Position Statement released earlier this month, “Available evidence suggests that a substantial proportion of children with prepubertal onset gender dysphoria experience resolution or significant reduction of distress by the time they reach adulthood, absent medical or surgical intervention.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Vanderbilt University Medical Center” by Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
