HUHS Sets New Date for LGBTQ Health Care Panel That Was Postponed Due to Trump Orders

Harvard University Health Services set a date for a virtual panel on Harvard’s LGBTQ health care services — more than two weeks after the panel was postponed due to uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting transgender individuals.

The panel was originally scheduled for Friday, Feb. 7, but was canceled a few hours before its scheduled start. No new date was set for the panel when it was initially postponed. The panel is now slated to take place March 11, according to a Friday email sent to students by the Office of BGLTQ Student Life.

Office of BGLTQ Student Life Director Meagan von Rohr, who was originally set to moderate the panel, will now moderate a brief question-and-answer period following a presentation on the resources available to Harvard affiliates.

Panelists will include members of the LGBTQ Care Team, which comprises nurse practitioners, doctors, registered nurses, licensed mental health counselors, and licensed independent clinical social workers.

The rescheduled panel will also include Harvard University Health Services Patient Advocate Mallory Finne, whose role includes helping patients identify financial assistance and mediating patient concerns.

The rescheduling suggests Harvard does not currently intend to quietly retire language and programs that Trump opposes. Even as some universities scrub language on diversity and gender identity from their websites, Harvard held its annual equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging forum last week. Top administrators have publicly defended the idea that diversity is key to academic excellence.

Though Trump’s Department of Education has removed federal Title IX protections against sexual harassment on the basis of gender identity, Harvard maintains a more expansive sexual misconduct policy that retains gender identity-based protections.

But Harvard has not emerged unaffected by Trump’s efforts to revoke federal protections for transgender people. The Department of Harvard Athletics removed its Transgender Inclusion Policy from its website following a Trump order banning trans women from women’s college sports.

And the University faces an ongoing lawsuit over its decision to allow a transgender swimmer to compete in the 2022 Ivy League Swimming and Diving Championships, held at Harvard. The lawsuit was filed shortly before Trump’s new restrictions on trans women athletes.

—Staff writer Nirja J. Trivedi can be reached at nirja.trivedi@thecrimson.com.