WBUR News16%
Families angry that Baystate Health still not providing gender care, despite legal developments 36%
By Karen Brown24% New England Public Media24%
8/5/2026, 6:39:26 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Appeal to Authority, and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 17.2% saturation with 137 hits. Analysis detected 1,185 faulty-reasoning hits from 795 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 35.6% and a BS Rank of 36% (19,742 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 64.50% of the article peer group.
It’s been four months since Bug, a 14-year-old transgender boy, started giving himself testosterone injections.
According to his mother J, it has not been fun.
(Bug is a nickname, and we’re calling his mother by her first initial because the family fears harassment.)
“He hates needles,” J said.
“It seems really challenging for him.”
So the fact that he’s willing to give himself an injection every week tells J how much Bug wanted to transition from girl to boy – with hormonal treatment, not surgery.
“Every week I think, ‘Well, you really care about this.
This is <em>that</em> important to you.'”
Bug is currently a patient at TransHealth, a clinic in Northampton that focuses on transgender health care.
Initially, after he came out as trans at the age of 13, Bug spent a year <a href="https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/04/02/gender-affirming-care-massachusetts-baystate-health">preparing</a> for gender-affirming hormone therapy with doctors at Baystate Health in Springfield.
His family had moved from Texas in 2024, in part, for Massachusetts’ more inclusive health care system.
Texas is among more than two dozen states that doesn’t allow gender-affirming care.
But in February 2026, Baystate announced it was ending most of its gender affirming care for minors, other than counseling.
At the time, Baystate sent a statement saying it could not risk losing millions of dollars in federal reimbursement, after the Trump administration had threatened to withhold Medicaid and Medicare payments from providers that treat transgender youth.
Previously President Trump had issued an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-children-from-chemical-and-surgical-mutilation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order </a>against gender-affirming care for youth.
The federal Health and Human Services agency, helmed by Robert F.
Kennedy Jr., <a href="https://www.kff.org/lgbtq/overview-of-president-trumps-executive-actions-impacting-lgbtq-health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claims gender-affirming treatment</a> is <a href="https://www.wbur.org/npr/nx-s1-5647789/transgender-gender-affirming-care-rfk-jr-dr-oz-trump">harmful to young people</a>, although major medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, say the opposite.
(Note that HHS has since removed the links to several announced policies against gender-affirming care from its official website.)
Shortly after Baystate’s decision, Bug said he was devastated.
"I bet there's tons and tons of kids who are like, 'OK, I'm going for trans affirming healthcare.
Yay!',” he said.
“And then we're like, 'No, never mind.'
And then like tons and tons of kids were disappointed and sad and frustrated."
But since then, the legal landscape has evolved.
Judges in two lawsuits blocked the Trump administration from banning youth gender care, at least for now.
In June, a judge <a href="https://www.wbur.org/npr/1183578244/federal-judge-blocks-the-countrys-first-ban-on-gender-affirming-care-for-minors">struck down an Arkansas law</a> banning gender-affirming care for youth.
And an <a href="https://www.wbur.org/npr/nx-s1-5888586/transgender-gender-affirming-care-medicare-medicaid-hhs">NPR investigation</a> in July found documents showing that the Trump administration has backed off on its proposed rule blocking Medicaid and Medicare funding.
Records show the government has postponed the final rule review until 2028, although the Health and Human Services agency responded to that story on the social media platform X to say it was not actually reversing course.
When asked whether these developments would influence Baystate’s treatment policy, spokesperson Heather Duggan confirmed that Baystate has not restarted its gender-affirming treatment for youth and she didn’t know if it would in the future.
Bug’s mother J said she is livid that Baystate is still not providing that care.
Although Baystate may still have reasons to fear the government’s threats, “I don't have any sympathy for it,” J said.
“Because every time someone just gives in to this administration, the administration just gains power.
And yeah, it's uncomfortable and scary and [the hospitals] get to choose, ‘oh, we're just not going to participate,’ while there are children who don't have that choice.”
In May, Massachusetts Attorney General Campbell sent what she called a <a href="https://www.mass.gov/doc/gac-legal-advisory-5202026-1/download" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legal advisory to healthcare providers</a>, including Baystate.
The letter said there is no federal law against providing gender affirming care to youth, and that hospitals not providing that care “may amount to discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity or disability” under Massachusetts law.
The letter added that Campbell's office will “stand with providers against attempts to weaponize the justice system to intimidate them.”
But Campbell did not specifically order Baystate to restart gender-affirming hormone therapy for youth, as some attorneys general have done in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/nyregion/transgender-youth-nyu-langone-attorney-general.html">other states</a>.
J said she’s been working with other families on a grassroots advocacy campaign.
They are reaching out to pediatricians to normalize gender affirming care more widely.
That way, she said, the momentum would be hard to stop by the government.
“If we were to create a system in which every pediatrician understands gender-affirming care and can comfortably treat it, then what are they going to do?
Go after every pediatrician in the state?”
she said.
“That scale is just impossible for them to approach.”
<em>This story is a production of the New England News Collaborative.
It was originally <a href="https://www.nepm.org/regional-news/2026-08-03/families-angry-that-baystate-health-still-not-providing-gender-care-despite-legal-developments">published</a> by New England Public Media. </em>
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