The Fight to Protect Gender-Affirming Care and Trans Rights in Wisconsin Continues

A slew of anti-trans state legislation was recently vetoed by Governor Tony Evers in March. While this is obviously great news, it’s concerning that these bills were not only considered in the first place but passed by the State Legislature.

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Every LGBTQ+ adult and child deserves a safe environment to be their authentic selves, whether it be in public, at work, school or home, or in legal and medical contexts. For adults, gender-affirming care typically involves hormone replacement therapy (HRT or surgeries while for youth it encompasses puberty blockers, which are medications designed to halt the onset of puberty in order and therefore make it easier for an adolescent to take time to explore their gender identity. Non-medical forms of gender-affirming care may comprise name changes, haircuts, access to clothing of choice and both mental health and social support.

When Trump took office last year, attacking trans people was at the top of his list of priorities. In just his first two weeks he signed several executive orders undoing the recognition of trans peoples’ gender identities, banning trans people from serving in the military, withholding federal funding for gender-affirming care for minors, prohibiting what he considers ‘gender ideology’ from being taught in K-12 schools and preventing trans women athletes from competing in school sports. He also rescinded President Biden’s executive order extending federal protections related to gender identity and sexual orientation, then discontinued the LGBTQ+ youth suicide hotline last summer.

A slew of anti-trans state legislation was recently vetoed by Governor Tony Evers in March. While this is obviously great news, it is concerning that these bills were not only considered in the first place but passed in both the Republican-controlled assembly and senate. That said, it is imperative to understand the sociopolitical landscape of protecting gender-affirming care and transgender rights in Wisconsin.

The bills vetoed by Evers were AB100 (would have restricted trans athletes from participating in school sports), AB102 (same as AB100 but on collegiate level), AB103 (would have made it more difficult for students to change their name and pronouns at school) and AB104 (would have outright banned gender-affirming care for minors).

Clancy at the Forefront

State Representative Ryan Clancy has been at the forefront of combatting anti-trans legislation in Wisconsin and has a storied history of testifying against such harmful laws in committee. He describes challenging his Republican opponents on facets of LGBTQ+ issues as “interesting,” observing, “They fall apart under the smallest amount of scrutiny. They don’t have any idea of the science behind this and think that they don’t know any trans folks. It’s totally unhinged.”

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As co-chair of the Transgender and Non-Binary Advocacy Caucus alongside Senator Melissa Ratliff, the topic of trans rights is personal to Clancy as he is the father of two trans children. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” he affirms. “Even in a state that isn’t actively attacking trans kids, being trans is still a difficult process for them.”

Over the years, Clancy has not only heard every Republican argument against trans rights but has had conversations with individual Republicans where he points out contradictions. Yet, he watches those same individuals vote against their conscience just to remain aligned with their party. “I can’t imagine waking up in the morning and deciding I’m going to do some terrible thing that’s going to hurt kids to score political points.”

Clancy continues, “It’s really beautiful to see the community come together—trans folks and their kids, parents and allies—but also awful to ask those communities to show up month after month and session after session justifying their own existence.”

Proactive Legislation

That said, with a progressive trifecta this coming November, Clancy anticipates proactive legislation to protect gender-affirming care and trans rights will finally pass. Within the already-drafted bills are protections against gender-based discrimination for things like insurance, housing, employment and other public accommodations, the elimination of name change requirements in newspapers, instituting gender-neutral language in statute and formally recognizing March 31, 2025 as Wisconsin’s official Trans Day of Visibility. “This is an evolving list and we’re working with adults, kids and their parents, and allies on many of these,” Clancy explains. “We’re getting all the details right because we want to make sure there’s no components that slip through the cracks, and we're very open to additional suggestions there.”

As the state’s leading LGBTQ+ civil rights and advocacy organization, Fair Wisconsin has been instrumental in the struggle against anti-trans legislation. The group celebrated the recent vetoes, stating in a press release, “Trans Wisconsinites are our family, our friends, and our neighbors. Our state is a better, richer, more vibrant place thanks to our trans community. As we celebrate trans visibility today, we also recommit; Fair Wisconsin is dedicated to building a state where trans visibility can not only be celebrated but can be protected and safe, where trans Wisconsinites’ right to live publicly and freely is guaranteed by law.” 

Executive director Abigail Swetz adds in an email, “These bills are about more than just the makeup of a sports team or about health care - they are about excluding trans people from public life, and we cannot allow that, especially when our trans community is facing so much hostility from every level of government.”

Public Comments

During the session where anti-trans legislation was deliberated, Fair submitted 28,000 pages of written testimony from Wisconsinites across the state in support of trans rights. Also, in February, the group presented 143 pages of public comment advocating for gender-affirming care access for minors as well as 150 impact stories. Swetz reckons, “As a Wisconsinite who is tired of seeing my health care costs skyrocket, our schools forced to go to referendum and our communities threatened by federal immigration agents, I expect my elected legislators to focus on passing policies that actually improve our lives here in Wisconsin, and I look forward to the day that is our state’s reality.” Fair has a tab on its website keeping track of LGBTQ+ related legislation, both the good and bad.

On a national level, public schools have been particularly targeted by reactionary policies designed to restrict, silence and punish LGBTQ+ topics well before President Trump’s second term. Instances of this are occurring in Wisconsin. In 2023, Waukesha first grade dual language teacher Melissa Tempel, who had been with the district for five years, had planned for her students to sing “Rainbowland” by Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus but was then told by the school board they would not be allowed to. “It’s just a super wholesome song about being who you are and proud of it, and not letting other people tell you that you don’t belong,” Tempel notes.

She tweeted about the situation, which then went viral largely due to national headlines around anti-LGBTQ+ laws and policies being implemented in schools in Florida at the time. Tempel was subsequently put on leave and ultimately fired. “I was out of teaching for two years,” she shares. “I wasn’t able to get even an interview at any public school district in southeast Wisconsin.”

She subsequently filed a lawsuit against the school district. Tempel was not alone in being concerned for her LGBTQ+ students, noting that parents, teachers and community members were also frustrated by the lack of inclusion in Waukesha schools. In fact, Tempel remembers, “The district went around the schools during Christmas winter break and took all of the signs they thought were controversial down, so anything with rainbows or that said “all are welcome here” and stuff like that.” She mentions another Waukesha teacher had been suspended for refusing to take down a rainbow flag from their classroom.

Tempel has long-been an advocate for LGTBQ+ friendly policies in education, having worked with organizations like Rethinking Schools, Diverse & Resilient and Educators for Social Justice, and as a Welcoming Schools facilitator for Human Rights Campaign. Just months after being fired, Tempel launched her consulting firm Rainbowland Action Initiative to work with educators on incorporating best practices for inclusive school environments. 

Having since resumed her teaching career with Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), Tempel now teaches a summer seminar for fellow educators about LGBTQ+ inclusion, covering everything from being gender-affirming in the classroom to helping parents feel included in conversations to issues around gendered bathrooms. She emphasizes how important it is for parents and teachers of LGBTQ+ students to find community with one another. “I have friends with kids who were having trouble expressing their gender in the way they wanted to at school, and I’ve heard a lot of stories in addition to issues I had in my own classroom. The parents in Waukesha were amazing; when stuff was happening in schools, us teachers could go to the Waukesha Education Alliance and help us get the information out to other parents. I wanted to do the same thing for parents here in Milwaukee and have a place for them to get together and talk and meet other parents going through the same thing. It can be so helpful to know that you’re not on your own.”

She gives her biggest piece of advice to fellow educators, “Whether or not your school is supportive of different policies and identities, every single educator can be supportive by just being an example and being welcoming and accepting in their classroom. For example, instead of saying ‘girls and boys’ in my classroom, I just say ‘students.’ Instead of saying ‘mom and dad’ I’m saying ‘parents and caregivers.’ Anybody can be inclusive and be a good example of representation and of a classroom, and when you do that, you make students feel safe to learn because if they don’t, there’s no way they’re going to be able to focus.”

Watertown School District

In 2024, a Watertown school district banned trans students from using their pronouns and bathrooms of choice. More recently, this past May, the same school board pulled the instrumental piece “A Mother of a Revolution!” honoring Black Trans activist Marsha P. Johnson of the 1969 Stonewall Uprisings from the high school band’s spring concert, claiming the piece was “indoctrination” and endorsed political violence. Watertown students staged a walkout after the piece was pulled. Omar Thomas, the original composer of the pulled piece, flew in from Austin, Texas to conduct a student performance of the piece at a nearby church in Watertown on May 19.

On the national level of gender-affirming care for minors, KFF reports that 27 states have restricted access to some extent, including 24 of them enacting professional or legal penalties on practitioners providing gender-affirming care for minors. The same report shows that 50% of trans youth ages 13-17 live in states where gender-affirming care for minors has been restricted.

Where it remains accessible, the cost of gender-affirming care itself has become increasingly burdensome. Starting in 2019 up until last year, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin could receive Medicaid reimbursements for gender-affirming care. However, since Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill got passed, those reimbursements have been slashed, forcing patients to pay for care through private insurance or out-of-pocket.

Losing Funding?

Out of fear of losing funding, both hospitals UW Health and Children’s Wisconsin announced in January that they would be suspending gender-affirming care for minors. With that decision, only five providers in the entire state continue to provide such services. Three are in Madison and one is in Door County. Anna Mirer of Presence Primary Care is the only remaining provider in the Milwaukee area.

“There was always a big geographical maldistribution but it’s even worse now,” Mirer laments. Though she has provided gender-affirming care for adults throughout her career, Mirer had not offered it for minors until last year when Trump took office. Immediately after his onslaught of anti-trans executive orders began, she got on the phone with like-minded colleagues around the country to determine what could be done.

“Because of the nature of my business model, I don’t work with third-party payers, and that includes through the government, so it doesn’t apply to us,” Mirer points out. “There aren’t that many of us so it wasn’t a loophole anyone in particular had in mind. We had to figure out how to do this because we’re going to be the only doctors in our communities who can.”

To help with the influx of patients, Mirer has brought on medical assistant Shanae Alexander. Rather than insurance, patients pay Mirer a monthly sliding-scale membership fee to cover their care. For some of the more expensive medications, however, patients often still have to go through insurance. She describes her ethos, “To me, it’s a really clear justice issue, particularly for kids who have been in care but had it cut off. That’s forced detransition, and to me it’s pretty black-and-white how that’s harmful to children.”

Though Mirer is making an incredible difference by providing this extremely important service, she acknowledges her limitations as just one person. “It was always my practice to refer young people to an academic medical center with interdisciplinary care, and I still would be if I could. Everything I’m doing here is the inferior option. It would be better if I could send kids to a place where they had not only a doctor but a social worker and psychologist and endocrinologist and all of that stuff.”

When Mirer first started offering gender-affirming care for minors, Children’s was still doing it but not taking on new patients. “Basically, I started getting the patients who were looking for care at Children’s but got turned away,” Mirer recalls. When Children’s ended it entirely, she recalls getting about 50 inquiries in the first week. “My patient panel went up 50% in one month.”

Children’s had four doctors providing gender-affirming care for minors. Mirer has roughly 100 patients now, but between her practice and others in the state, she is concerned that not all of the former patients at UW-Madison or Children’s are accounted for. “We don’t know what’s happened to those patients or their families. We don’t know if they went to other states or found online programs or are going abroad. Nobody knows.”

How to Help

Mirer says the best way folks can help her and remaining providers in the state is to put pressure on Children’s and UW Health to resume gender-affirming care for minors. Luckily, there is a local grassroots group already doing this, Reproductive Justice Action Milwaukee (RJAM), who quickly mobilized in January to connect with individuals who confirmed the extent of the restrictions and identified feasible tactics for direct and indirect action.

“We unequivocally asserted our disapproval loudly and publicly,” RJAM propaganda co-chair Eli Carroll states. In May, the group organized a rally outside Children’s demanding gender-affirming care for minors be restored. They also launched a petition that has more than 800 signatures, as of this article’s publishing.

RJAM recognizes how the issue of gender-affirming care intersects with reproductive rights, as Carroll elaborates, “Part of the reproductive justice movement is to create and maintain safe and healthy environments to raise children in. RJAM firmly believes that providing gender-affirming care to minors is a critical part of maintaining the physical and mental wellbeing of our children in Wisconsin.”

Children's Wisconsin did not return request for comment regarding its decision to end gender-affirming care for minors.

Trans Resistance Action Committee (TRAC), Planned Parenthood Generation Action (PPGen) and PFLAG. TRAC has spearheaded its own campaign in Madison demanding UW Health restore gender-affirming care for minors, culminating in an April rally held outside the center. The group stated in a March 27 press release, “We have heard firsthand of the harm and stress that this decision is causing young people, their parents and whole communities. At minimum, it is costing families time and money to find new providers. At worst, kids are going without care and suffering needlessly.” They continued, “People should decide what care is best for them in consultation with their doctor, not politicians.”

Additional local groups doing significant work supporting gender-affirming care and trans rights that need support include Sun-Seeker MKE, Diverse & Resilient, GSAFE, Zao MKE, Milwaukee Trans and Queer Depot, Queer Campout, Trans Law Help Wisconsin, Courage+, Milwaukee LGBT Community Center, Trans Advocacy Madison, Trans Medical Mutual Aid and Trans Intergenerational Mutual Aid Project (TIMAP)