MIDDLEBURY — Multiple executive orders signed by President Donald Trump in the weeks since he took office have targeted transgender people, from the healthcare they’re able to access to the sports they’re allowed to compete in.

How have such actions at the federal level affected trans community members in Addison County?

Middlebury College junior Lia Smith, a trans woman who competed as a diver for Middlebury’s aquatics team, has seen a change over her career in sports.

“There’s been a shift, and as much as trans athletes were disliked before, now it’s definitely coming back to the forefront again,” she said at a Trans Healthcare and Politics panel held in Dana Auditorium this past Thursday

Middlebury College junior Lia Smith and other trans health care experts talk on a panel at Dana Auditorium this past Thursday.
Independent photo/Marin Howell

The forum, which featured professors, trans students and medical professionals, examined how recent executive orders and other actions at the federal level are playing out locally.

Among other questions posed by the crowd that evening, panelists were asked how the Trump administration has changed things like insurance and billing for gender-affirming treatments and care.

Alison Finch, director of Health Services at Middlebury College’s Center for Health and Wellness, said it hadn’t changed things as of Thursday, but had introduced a lot of uncertainty for staff and students.

“Uncertainty is again just one of the hardest things for folks to deal with, so I would say that’s the biggest impact that I’ve noticed,” she said.

Trans supporters danced in a conga line across the Middlebury campus on Feb. 20.
Independent photo/Steve James

Finch was among four panelists at the gathering, which was one of two events centering around transgender healthcare and politics held at Middlebury College that evening. Students organized the panel in response to a talk on “What is the Right Approach on Public Policy and Transgender Medicine?” that took place in nearby Wilson Hall, which featured speakers Leor Sapir of the Manhattan Institute and Brianna Wu, the executive director of Rebellion PAC.

That event had raised concerns and criticism among members of Middlebury College and the broader community, some of whom described the talk as “anti-trans” and voiced concern that it would spread harmful misinformation.

Students put together the Trans Healthcare and Politics panel in Dana Auditorium to offer an alternative forum. The event followed a “Big Trans Dance Party,” held outside the McCullough Student Center.

The Independent attended a portion of both panel events, which were held at the same time.

WILSON HALL TALK

Around 100 people gathered for the Wilson Hall event featuring Sapir and Wu, which was sponsored by the Alexander Hamilton Forum and open only to Middlebury College ID cardholders.

Around 100 people gathered at Wilson Hall on Feb. 20 for a talk on “What is the Right Approach on Public Policy and Transgender Medicine?” which featured speakers Leor Sapir of the Manhattan Institute and Brianna Wu, the executive director of Rebellion PAC.
Independent photo/Steve James

Organizers said the goal was to help the community think through the question put forth in the title of the presentation. However, the talk raised concerns among community members on and off campus, who took to online platforms like Reddit and Front Porch Forum to push back against the speakers being given a platform at Middlebury College.

A lively discussion on Reddit described Sapir as a political scientist who insists trans suicide statistics are made up. Some people described Wu as a transgender woman who casts skepticism on the efficacy of trans healthcare.

About 20 minutes into their talk, a protester entered Wilson Hall and began playing the trumpet. The individual was asked to leave and exchanged remarks with the panelists before pulling out a harmonica, which prompted cheers from many in the audience. The demonstrator left shortly after.

Wu shared her personal experience with the audience.

“I think in the midst of all this politics the human cost of what it’s like to be a trans child is not really in this discussion at all, so I want to tell you my story,” Wu said.

She spoke of being called slurs growing up in Mississippi during the 1980s and after high school developing a substance abuse disorder that almost killed her.

“That is the truth for a lot of those kids. At the same time, we’ve rode up here from Massachusetts together and we both strongly agree that the treatment that children like that get today, there are some serious problems with the way this healthcare is delivered today,” Wu said.

“I could take anyone in this room here today, literally anyone here, to Planned Parenthood in Massachusetts and get you on (hormone replacement therapy) today,” she claimed.

But Planned Parenthood states on its website that gender-affirming care like hormone therapy might not be easy to access. It can be expensive and might not be covered by insurance.

“Cost and insurance coverage often vary by treatment, what insurance you have, and where you live. If you’re under 18, you’ll likely need a parent or legal guardian’s permission to get them. Sometimes finding a nurse or doctor who offers these treatments can be more difficult depending on where you live,” the website reads.

STUDENT-LED EVENT

Debunking myths — such as the alleged easy access to gender-affirming care — was one of the topics discussed at the Trans Healthcare and Politics panel in Dana Auditorium.

“One of (the myths) is that a kid can walk into a pediatrician’s office and say, ‘I’m a boy, not a girl,’ and leave with a prescription for hormones and a referral from a surgeon,” said Dr. Francisco “Paco” Corbalan, a local pediatrician. “That comes up a lot, and that’s ridiculous. The decisions that we make in terms of how are we going to approach this are longitudinal and they take time and thought and discussion and we try to be really intentional about ‘how do we do this in a way that is safe from a medical standpoint, that fits into your goals as a kid and as a family, how do you make sure that you have the support that you need.’

“The idea that this is like a drive-through, you get your meds on the go, is nonsense,” he continued.

Elio Farley, center, dances with others at a “Big Trance Dance Party” outside McCullough Student Center shortly before a Trans Health Care panel discussion in that building this past Thursday.
Independent photo/Steve James

Community members packed the Dana Auditorium talk, which has a capacity of 249 people, to hear from the panelists. Organizers noted the event would be “an opportunity for students and community members alike to better understand both this political moment in trans healthcare and the science supporting our continued access to care.”

Corbalan told the crowd that another thing he hears a lot is that gender shouldn’t be discussed around kids because they’re not ready to talk about it — a point he noted came up in parents’ challenge of gender-related instructional materials used to educate kindergarteners at Mary Hogan Elementary School this past December.

“If anyone has ever spent time with a kid you know they have a remarkable capacity for nuance and critical thinking and acceptance, and all you have to do is just listen to them talk to you, and you’ll see they are way more advanced in thinking about this stuff than any adult is,” he said.

‘THERE’S BEEN A SHIFT’

In response to the question about how the Trump administration has impacted insurance and billing for gender-affirming care, Corbalan echoed Finch’s analysis. He noted that in Vermont there are some protections around Medicaid payments for trans healthcare.

“Nothing has changed, again, yet, but who knows,” he said.

Finch pointed out that the college health services team often plans for a student’s transition from campus to home for summer break or to study abroad.

“We’ve actually always had to have conversations with our students around their access to healthcare as they’re in other countries, as they’re in a different community that might not be as affirming as their college experience,” she said. “Those conversations are just now happening much more frequently and certainly with much more weight attached to them now.”

Attendees also heard from Middlebury College student Lia Smith about her experience as a diver on the women’s swimming and diving team. Smith spoke of being recruited to Middlebury as a trans athlete, noting that her coach and fellow teammates have always been supportive.

“It can be hard,” Smith said of the experience. “Especially because you have to get your hormones checked if you’re competing about, I’d say, once every three months and my healthcare’s at home, so it can be really hard getting all of those blood tests in between breaks and then submitting them on time.”

“I remember one time my testosterone blocker was rejected and seen as a steroid enhancement by the NCAA, so I actually couldn’t compete for points at my first meet my freshman year,” she said.

Smith said she took a break from diving during her sophomore year, as there was a lot of pressure from it.

“It’s really hard putting on the suit every day if you are obviously an outlier,” she said. “It’s also really hard going in a locker room where you’re not welcome, and there’s really not a clear space that I should be going to.”

Smith added that trans rhetoric recently has made the experience much harder.

She pointed out that trans athletes make up a small percentage of those participating in sports across all age levels in the country. For example, NCAA President Charlie Baker recently said he’s aware of fewer than 10 transgender athletes out of the more than 500,000 competing at the collegiate level. Trump earlier this month signed an executive order barring trans women and girls from competing in female sports.

Panelists also addressed other myths that come up in anti-trans rhetoric, such as the “predatory trans woman.”

“We’re not trying to get into women’s spaces to be perverts,” Smith said. “We’re just being ourselves. We don’t mean any harm to anyone.”

Laurie Essig, professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at Middlebury College, noted that the myth of the predatory trans woman comes up a lot in trans-exclusionary radical feminism.

“What they’ll do is take one case or two cases of sexual predation that happened and say, ‘all trans women are sexual predators,’” Essig explained. “When you hear that coming out of the mouth of J.K. Rowling don’t say ‘Oh, well that’s a good point there was that one prison case in England.’ It’s a really good time to say, ‘What is this rhetoric, what is it doing?’”

She explained that cisgender men — “cis” meaning they identify with the sex assigned to them at birth — are more threatening to cisgender women and trans women.

“Obviously the real threat to cis women and trans women comes from cis men, statistically speaking, so it’s really interesting that I hear sometimes from cis men that they’re just trying to protect women and girls from trans women,” Essig continued. “I would be really suspicious of that rhetoric.”

Essig also cautioned attendees against engaging with other anti-trans rhetoric.

“I would be really, really careful about participating in any of the rhetoric connected to the anti-trans, and in other places anti-gay, movements because it is related to this fascist passion that we see elsewhere for other populations in imagining them disappeared,” she said.