Smith College’s Schacht Center for Health and Wellness is making a commitment to providing students with access to treatment and healthcare amidst President Trump’s recent executive orders, including one that sought to severely limit access to healthcare for transgender people under the age of nineteen.
An executive order entitled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” issued on Jan. 28, targets hospitals, federal programs and universities that receive federal funding, threatening to cut such institutions out of the federal budget if they continue to provide gender-affirming services. Several state courts have paused or directly challenged the order, but the threat of funding loss has already caused many practices across the United States to curtail their gender-affirming care services, including hormone replacement therapy, puberty blockers and surgical operations
Director of the Schacht Center, Kris Evans, is closely monitoring the news for any updates that would impact student care here at Smith.
“Many of [the executive orders] are being challenged either by the states or by the court systems. […] It’s hard to say if it has any teeth. We can’t predict what’s coming, but we’ll be prepared. What I can say is that there are certain principles that guide what we do at the Schacht Center, and those do not change,” said Evans.
Both the Schacht Center and President Willie-LeBreton have said that the current state of federal politics and the targeted executive orders are designed to create chaos — and that Smith College will stay true to its mission and its students amidst the confusion.
In an email to the Smith community, President Willie-LeBreton affirmed that “the dizzying number of executive orders targeting higher education and members of our community — particularly people who are transgender, nonbinary, and undocumented — is meant to sow chaos, confusion, and lack of trust in each other,” going on to emphasize the need for community support during political tumult. “We must be brave, speak honestly, listen carefully, and nurture our connections with each other.”
Currently, the Schacht Center provides gender-affirming primary care, including hormone therapy, labs and specialty consultations and referrals for students interested in surgeries. Outside of medical services, students have access to several programs through counseling and wellness that provide support for transgender students, including a binder library and help with changing names and gender markings on documents.
The insurance plan that Smith offers to students is guided by Mass. state law, which protects gender-affirming care. Mass. is a “shield state” for several healthcare services that are criminalized in other parts of the country, including trans healthcare and reproductive care — meaning that anyone within Mass. cannot be prosecuted across state lines for receiving such services.
Laws such as these mean that the Commonwealth of Mass. and Smith College serve as safe spaces for many community members, especially those who have relocated from states with harsher records. As such, the care and protections provided are of heightened importance amid political uncertainty.
“So many people come to places in blue states like Smith. It adds a lot of nuance knowing that there might be a relatively sizable number of trans people coming to blue states specifically so that they are able to get that care,” said Margot Audero ’26, co-president of the Trans and Nonbinary Alliance at Smith College and a research assistant in Professor Scott Lacombe’s social science lab tracking gender-affirming care laws.
In the event that Massachusetts law changes, Smith insurance and healthcare coverage may be impacted, but the college is working closely with insurance providers to ensure that access will remain stable and that community members will have all of the support that they need.
“As a college, we are not going to roll over,” said President Willie-LeBreton on a Feb. 6 webinar, addressing the college’s approach to the new executive orders. .
Anxiety surrounding politics and the uncertain future of healthcare remains prevalent on-campus, however. To address this, the Schacht Center hosts support groups and wellness initiatives, including a trans, nonbinary and gender non-conforming (TNGC+) support group that has been running since 2017, and students are finding their own ways to get involved and both research and advocate for trans rights.
“There is always something that we can do, even when there are a lot of legislative issues that we don’t feel like we can change,” said Forest Cusolito ’28, co-president of Queer Youth Assemble and vice president for Administration at National Transgender Leadership Conference Committee, two nonprofits dedicated to queer and trans activism.
“We have a lot of knowledge in [Smith College] that could be utilized to create change or even just share that knowledge with other people,” Cusolito said. “I would love to see more people being really actively engaged in the community and trying to build more structures of support for people –– whether it’s locally doing more mutual aid efforts and really uplifting local communities.”
When asked to comment on support for transgender students, the college stated in an email that “Smith is a community that includes and celebrates people with a wide range of gender identities and expressions. Understanding that these are very uncertain and vulnerable times, the college believes our trans community members have the right to live their lives fully and authentically and we will continue to offer caring support in pursuit of that right.”
Gender-affirming care is one of many paths towards trans equality — and as Cusolito emphasized, living authentically and having hope are key to continuing activist efforts.
“It’ll get worse before it gets better a lot of the time, but it’s really huge to have resilience and not give in to feeling like it’s hopeless or giving into that despair that can be really easy to get dragged into,” said Cusolito. “I try to always remember that who I am and the people that I choose to surround myself with can’t be taken away.”
“The trans community has had to become very resilient,” said Evans. “I believe in the college, and I believe in the Schacht Center. We will all make it through this together.”
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