The University of Wisconsin—Madison will no longer require counseling or medical recommendation before administering hormone therapy to transgender students.
Beginning May 17, the school will begin administering hormone replacement therapy to transgender students without requiring any sort of medical or psychological evaluation or recommendation, according to UW’s Gender and Campus Sexuality Center Assistant Director Katherine Charek Briggs.
“We are very pleased to share a workflow change at University Health Services that helps students access hormones for gender transition without going through counseling or getting a letter,” the health center announced.
The justification for the new procedure is based on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health “Informed Consent model,” which, according to the university, “reduces barriers to accessing medically necessary treatment.” While this may be a true assessment, certain “barriers” are often in place for the purpose of insuring that treatment is needed and “medically necessary.”
By removing the requirement for counseling or a letter of recommendation, the school eliminates a vital step in ensuring that its actions are indeed necessary. The suggestion that students are capable of making such a decision without consulting a medical or mental health professional raises the question of whether or not it is a procedure that should be handled by student health services in the first place.
Under the new “workflow,” as the college is refers to it, those seeking hormone replacement therapy will be able to do so simply by fulfilling the listed criteria for informed consent: First, “Have correct information about HRT,” second, be “able to understand the information about HRT that has been provided…” and third, be “able to use this information to make a decision.”
Effectively, such a “workflow” ensures that the only practical action now required of UHS before administering hormone therapy to students is that they first provide the student “correct information about HRT.”
The university reassures that “as of early 2018, five medical providers at UHS have been trained to provide care related to gender affirming hormones, including initiation and maintenance,” who “in addition to medical training,” have participated in a 12-hour training course to qualify them for such roles.
HRT is included in “transition services” that are covered by the school’s Student Health Insurance Program. According to the university website, “SHIP covers up to $25,000 of transition care, including hormone prescriptions, surgical procedures, electrolysis, and other transition-related medications or procedures.”
Meredith McGlone, the director of News and Media Relations at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, told Red Alert Politics that new option for students to receive hormone therapy without requiring medical or psychological evaluation or recommendation is not a new policy but rather a change in workflow “to make the process for receiving hormone replacement therapy consistent with the process for receiving other medications provided by the medical staff.” UHS will continue to offer mental health services including individual counseling to students who request it but it is no longer required.
