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← Signal: State & Power

Massachusetts trans youth activists occupy attorney general's office, nine arrested after state hospitals cut gender-affirming care

Confirmed1 source · Sep 5, 2026

Youth-led group Protect Trans Futures demanded enforcement of state civil rights protections as hospitals preemptively ended care despite it remaining legal in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts trans youth activists occupy attorney general's office, nine arrested after state hospitals cut gender-affirming care
Image via The Guardian

What happened

On Wednesday, trans activists from Protect Trans Futures took hormone replacement therapy in the lobby of Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell's office building and refused to leave without a commitment to protect civil rights for trans youth. The action followed organizers' attempts to meet with Campbell's office. Nine organizers, including 21-year-old Teddy Walker, were arrested by state troopers after the building closed. According to reporting, at least three Massachusetts hospitals or healthcare systems have ended gender-affirming care programs for patients under 19, and a fourth canceled gender-affirming surgery appointments for adult trans women, despite Trump administration directives specifically targeting youth care.

Context

Massachusetts has long been considered a legally protected haven for trans people, with shield laws protecting residents from lawsuits related to gender-affirming care and state political leaders vocal in support of trans rights. However, the Trump administration's January 2025 executive order threatening to cut federal funding for hospitals providing youth gender-affirming care, followed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s effort to target Medicaid funding, created a chilling effect—leading hospitals to curtail care even though those federal efforts have been largely blocked and no hospitals have actually lost federal funding. Fifty percent of trans youth ages 13 to 17 live in states where such care is restricted or banned, and hundreds of thousands of trans people and families have migrated to states like Massachusetts seeking legal protection. While Campbell's office has stated that ending youth care may constitute discrimination under state law and she joined 21 other state attorneys general in suing the Trump administration over Medicaid coverage, she has refused to litigate against hospitals that ended care or order them to reinstate it—a step taken by attorneys general in New York, California, and Colorado's courts.