Health care professionals and activists protest UPMC's restriction of gender-affirming care

The bodies of roughly 100 UPMC providers and local community activists laid sprawled outside UPMC’s Downtown headquarters Monday, as part of a nonviolent protest against the health-care network for restricting gender-affirming care.

“It is about us being told that we cannot have the health care we need to survive, to breathe, to live as who we are,” said Kaiah Scott, who grew up in Pittsburgh as a trans woman. “When UPMC cut off care, it was not just a policy change, it was a message. It was them saying our lives are not worth protecting.”

For the protest, UPMC providers joined members of TransYOUniting and ACT UP to march from Mellon Square to the U.S. Steel Tower, where UPMC is headquartered. The demonstration demanded that UPMC return to providing gender-affirming care for patients under 19 years old and file a motion against a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The protest followed UPMC’s announcement in June that it would stop providing gender-affirming care, such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery, for patients 18 and younger. The UPMC decision came after a White House executive order in January limiting gender-affirming care. The Trump administration’s executive order also stated that institutions that continued to provide care would have their allocated federal funds withheld.

After marching, members of the group, dressed in black mourning attire and carrying various gravestone-shaped signs, stopped on the stairs of UPMC’s Downtown building and pretended to be dead.

They remained silent and still for 375 drumbeats, in honor of the 375 trans youth who now do not have access to care.

@UPMC providers and community members take to the streets in a protest against UPMC for stopping gender-affirming care to people under the age of 19. @TribLIVE pic.twitter.com/dXVGRZIyHC

— Megan Trotter (@meganktrotter) September 8, 2025

On the steps of the U.S. Steel Tower protesters participate in a ‘die-in,’ demanding @UPMC reinstate gender-affirming care for youth under the age of 19. @TribLIVE pic.twitter.com/3hNxvibC5l

— Megan Trotter (@meganktrotter) September 8, 2025

UPMC providers Kailey Andrew, Katherine Anderson and Olivia Mincone spoke about the mental-health dangers that come from removing gender-affirming care.

“We know that trans and queer youth are already at a heightened risk for suicidality, due to being a marginalized group and removing hormone replacement therapy,” said Mincone. She said she’s worked as a registered nurse in a UPMC suicide prevention clinic for teenagers for two years and has trans siblings and friends.

In August, Gov. Josh Shapiro, along with attorneys general from 15 states and the District of Columbia, filed a lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of intimidating health care providers into stopping gender-affirming care, as reported by the Associated Press.

The same day, over 450 UPMC staff members signed an open letter to UPMC officials.

“As we stand with our patients, we are enraged. We will not violate our ethics or our oaths to do no harm. We will not stand by or be complicit in this atrocious attempt to eliminate transgender people from society,” the letter said.

In July, the U.S. Department of Justice subpoenaed more than 20 doctors, clinics and providers over gender-affirming care — including UPMC.

Mincone said she feels fortunate to work in a office where her direct management hasn’t discouraged her from protesting.

“They are in support of us speaking to the media. However, they are not really the ones that make that decision, and we know that UPMC higher-ups don’t like what we’re doing, in part because we’re drawing attention to them, and we’re making them look bad, and they should look bad,” Mincone said.

UPMC did not respond to request for comment on Monday.