MEMPHIS, Tenn. — After receiving criticism from the local LGBTQ+ community, Methodist Le Bonheur is responding to concerns about their reasoning behind a pause in transgender surgeries.
"In recent weeks, some care providers voiced questions about patients receiving gender affirming procedures at a facility affiliated with our health system," a statement from the hospital reads. "This resulted in a temporary pause to review current practices. We have not changed our practices regarding the treatment of transgender and/or non-binary patients. We understand the physicians are moving forward with getting the patients rescheduled before the end of the year."
This is an ongoing story and ABC 24 will update this article as more information becomes available.
On Tuesday, just one day after some gender-affirming surgeries were scheduled to take place, former Methodist patient Kayla Gore said that halting such gender-affirming procedures would cause a major problem for trans people in the city of Memphis.
“In the state of Tennessee, we’ve been in this situation before, where our bodies are being brought into question of how we can use our bodies, and now it’s being brought into question how we can change our bodies that fit us,” Gore said.
Methodist’s decision to cancel surgeries is left transgender patients with nowhere nearby to get safe gender-affirming surgery, according to Gore. Gore said this isn’t the first time something like this has set back transgender patients.
“It’s gonna take us back 10 years, where trans people had to go to St. Louis and now we’re having to go to Nashville just to get trans-affirming care,” Gore said.
While Methodist healthcare is a private organization, patients who are being left without surgery argue they’re being discriminated against. As of Tuesday, the Tennessee ACLU has agreed to take up the issue.