Multiple families of transgender children said UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has denied access to gender-affirming care medicine to their kids. Without communication from their doctors or a clear path forward, some parents said they’re fearing for their child’s future.

This comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 28 halting federal funding for gender-affirming medical care for people under 19 years of age. The order additionally intended to restrict the usage of puberty blockers, sex hormones and gender-affirming surgery for minors. Trump’s order was temporarily halted nationwide by a Maryland judge on Mar. 4 after trans people and families of trans children filed a federal lawsuit against it.

Marco Linnabary, a 16-year-old trans boy from Delmont, and his mother Christie Linnabary said they’ve tried reaching out through UPMC’s app about gender-affirming care but have not received responses for two weeks — a contrast from the 24-48 hour turnaround they’ve come to expect.

The Linnabarys said Marco has been receiving shots of Depo-Provera, a birth control injection that halts periods, for the past 1.5 years to help Marco manage gender dysphoria. In addition to the depo shot, Christie said CHP doctors have offered Marco psychiatric care to help him navigate his body dysmorphia and life as a trans boy. 

The next step in his transition was planned to be hormone replacement therapy to receive testosterone, but Christie said she’s unsure if he’ll be able to receive the treatment. Christie said she knows of two other families whose trans children have been recently denied gender-affirming medications from CHP, including one of Marco’s 18-year-old friends who was recently denied testosterone even though he had been using it for a “couple of months,” according to Christie.

Marco said the depo shot, the first step in his planned care, has “done wonders” for him.

“I used to get very extreme cramps where I wouldn’t be able to go to school or get up,” Marco said. “I would have meltdowns every time I got my period because it just made me so upset. It made me very dysphoric. Not having that period is one less thing I have to worry about.”

Christie said the denial of gender-affirming medications for trans youth is “dangerous.”

“Medical care is for everybody. It’s not just for the people you agree with, it’s not just for the people who have the same ideas as you or politics as you,” Christie said. “Health care is health care no matter what it is, and why would you deny health care for a portion of people? That just seems so inhumane to me.”

CHP’s website no longer shows its Gender and Sexual Development Program’s webpage. In 2021, the program provided over 2,000 patients with gender-affirming care, including trans health care, according to WESA. The link to the program’s webpage — which existed as recently as Jan. 30, according to the Internet Archive — now redirects to CHP’s Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine page.

Alexandra Weiner, a former Pitt professor, current math PhD student at York University and trans woman, said she’s in a group chat with local families with trans children. She said kids in “multiple families” in the text thread have been denied gender-affirming medications from CHP and that parents feel fear for their children’s futures.

“A lot of them are on the cusp of puberty, we’re talking 12, 13, 14. People are really scared that they’re going to have to watch their child go through a puberty that they know will cause them anguish,” Weiner said. “Parents are just as aware that this is the beginning of a very dangerous path, and people are worried for their kid’s safety.”

A parent of a 13-year-old trans girl, who was granted anonymity to protect their family’s privacy, said their doctor denied puberty blockers to their daughter when they visited CHP two weeks ago. Now, the parent said they’re “scrambling” to find medications for their daughter.

The parent said their daughter began expressing gender dysphoria when she was 8 years old, telling them she was “in the wrong body [and] that she didn’t want to live anymore,” prompting them to begin treatments at CHP in March 2020.

Research by The Trevor Project from 2022 found 54% of transgender and nonbinary youth in Pennsylvania had considered suicide in 2021, while 19% attempted suicide in the same year. Multiple studies have shown a link between greater access to gender-affirming care and decreased rates of depression and suicidality.

They said the doctors helped their daughter transition socially, including encouraging her to wear girl’s clothing, all while checking for signs of puberty so she could take blockers to prevent her puberty from beginning. According to the parent, their daughter said the thought of her puberty beginning “terrifies her.”

“She’s terrified of … changing appearance and being not who she is,” the parent said, “and my fear in that is her getting bullied and reverting back to the frame of mind … prior to her transitioning and not wanting to be with us anymore.”

With their daughter showing early signs of puberty and unable to receive puberty blockers from CHP, the parent said they’re seeking alternative options.

“Time, essentially, is ticking. Once these changes [puberty] continue to take place, there’s no going back,” the parent said. “It’s to benefit my child’s mental health, physical health, to keep her healthy [and] away from the worst-case scenario — self-harm.”

They said they contacted the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, but were turned away because the hospital’s Gender and Sexuality Development Clinic is “unable to provide ongoing outpatient therapy,” according to its website. The parent said they’ve looked into traveling to Vermont, New York and Michigan — all states without bans on gender-affirming medications for trans youth — to access puberty blockers for their daughter.

Without a clear path forward, the parent said they and their daughter feel “absolutely horrible,” adding “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.” Under the Trump administration, the parent said they see no other option than to advocate for change.

“This is only the beginning of the next four years, unless we continue to advocate,” the parent said. “We were pretty quiet about this, but now I’m willing to do what I need to do to protect my child’s health, safety and well-being.”

In 2022, Pennsylvania had an estimated 10,000 trans youth ages 13-17, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA, a research center on sexual orientation and gender identity law. A CHP study published in 2020 found that 47% of trans youth ages 12-26 reported intentionally avoiding disclosing their gender identity to a health care provider, even when they thought it could impact their health.

Weiner said, when she was in middle school, she experienced gender dysphoria, though she didn’t know how to describe her feelings since she “didn’t know what a trans woman was.” As she learned more, Weiner began hormone replacement therapy in 2023, a choice she called “the best decision I’ve ever made for myself in my entire life.”

“The thought of being denied estrogen is so scary to me because I remember how I felt, and it was a very depressing time,” Weiner said. “I can’t imagine being a trans child who has figured out what they want, who has expressed who they are, whose parents are even willing to help them go through that and then to be denied by a doctor.”

UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh did not respond to multiple calls and emails requesting comment.