Health care providers around the nation have made strides this year to make health care more trans-inclusive, and this university is no exception.

The University Health Center has taken steps this semester to be more trans-inclusive, such as removing transgender exclusions from the student health insurance plan and recently gaining the ability to initiate hormone replacement therapy.

Nicholas Sakurai, associate director of the university’s LGBT Equity Center, said these changes come as part of the national trend of trans-inclusion in the past year. He noted that this university joins roughly 60 schools with trans-inclusive health insurance plans, including more than half of other Big Ten schools.

“I am excited to be able to provide full and equal medical care to our transgender students,” Penny Jacobs, Family nurse practitioner at the Health Center, wrote in an email statement to The Diamondback. “We’ve been working for this for a long time and I’m proud the day is finally here.” 

The trend can be seen not only among universities, but also in this state. In the past year, the state passed a transgender anti-discrimination law and made a legal settlement that made health insurance for all state employees more trans-inclusive, Sakurai said. 

The student health insurance plan expansion came in late August, and took effect this semester. The plan now includes various surgical procedures to treat gender identity disorder and dysphoria. Jenna Beckwith Messman, sexual health program coordinator, said the specific coverage varies with each case. Hormone replacement therapy at the Health Center is something initiated during the past few weeks.

Jacobs performs the service, which the Health Center previously could only continue for students who had begun the process elsewhere. With an updated clinical procedure, increased education, training and research for staff, students no longer have to start the procedure off campus.

“Where students may have had to go off campus in the past to get their transgender care or get their hormone therapy, they will be able to come here,” Jacobs said. “So, that relieves people of a huge burden. … It should make things a lot easier.”

Jacobs said the health center has been working hard on creating the service’s specific procedure, which can be found on its website. It involves students participating in a comprehensive mental health assessment, discussing informed consent with Beckwith Messman, and undergoing a physical health assessment before beginning the process.

“We wanted to make sure we were appropriately ready in terms of our clinical policies and procedures to make that new start available to students,” said David McBride, the health center’s director.

Sakurai said this allows students to have a stronger relationship with the health center and gives it a “continuity of coverage.”

“Instead of feeling like, ‘Well, I have to go to a clinic off campus because our Health Center isn’t prepared to help me,’ they can feel that they can go to the health center and really just begin the process there,” Sakurai said. “Not very many campuses are doing that across the country.”