Petition is addressed to: New Mexico Legislature, UNMH

As community members, representatives, educators, organizations, and health care providers, we demand that UNMH teach and provide gender-affirming care in our state. 

We call on UNMH to recruit students and train residents to ensure everyone, regardless of income, receives the care they deserve. 

We call on our state legislators to earmark funds to UNMH specifically for gender-affirming care, so that we can access the care our state has fought to protect.

Recently, UNMH has stopped providing gender-affirming surgeries in Surgical Specialties. This is unacceptable. We live in a state that prioritizes and protects gender-affirming care. House Bill 7, the Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care Act, prohibits public bodies, such as public hospitals, from “denying, restricting, or discriminating against an individual’s right to use or refuse reproductive health care or health care related to gender.” So why are gender-expansive folks not receiving the healthcare we deserve? Why is UNMH Surgical Specialties suddenly unwilling to offer this care for a specific population?  

NM is a proud refuge state; people come here from all over the country to receive the care that our legislature has protected by law. Our state supports UNMH financially to ensure this care is accessible. Nonetheless, with Dr. Kuhn, who previously provided excellent compassionate gender affirming top surgeries, shifting into senior residency, UNMH’s clinical Surgical Specialties Clinic is no longer providing gender-affirming surgeries. There is currently only one surgeon in all of Albuquerque who takes Medicaid and offers gender-affirming surgeries. HB7 was meant to prevent institutions such as UNMH from making it harder for individuals to access gender-affirming health care – clearly, this situation is going against the spirit of that bill. 

Why are there no other residents in line to replace Dr. Kuhn? Why aren’t attending UNMH physicians offering and teaching gender-affirming surgeries? Why isn't gender-affirming care a mandatory rotation within Surgical Specialties? As a state-funded teaching hospital in a state that prioritizes gender-affirming care, UNMH should prioritize ensuring there are residents and attending physicians to bridge the gap for such care that currently exists in NM.  With an entire new building funded by the legislature, how is there no space for gender affirming care?