With the recent announcement that Alaska’s most prominent LGBTQ gender clinic is shutting down, a Washington-based transgender clinic has vowed to keep the cross-sex drug pipeline open to Alaska youth and adults through the use of online telemedicine.
Earlier this month, the Anchorage-based Identity, Inc. clinic announced that it was shuttering its doors due to financial, political and social pressures. Identity was a multi-faceted LGBTQ nonprofit that operated a controversial gender clinic facilitating puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and life-altering, irreversible surgeries on both youth and adults.
While critics of controversial “gender-affirming” care cheered the news of its closure, a Washington State business called QueerDoc is swooping in to fill the void.
A recent announcement from QueerDoc noted that it will ramp up its current offerings of cross-sex services for Alaska youth and adults who wish to appear as the opposite sex.
“Identity Alaska’s closure reflects a growing trend of transgender clinics closing across the country, increasing barriers to care – particularly in geographically large and rural states like Alaska, including Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, and surrounding communities,” the QueerDoc announcement stated. “Patients affected by the closure of Identity Alaska are encouraged to request their medical records and arrange follow-up care to avoid disruptions in treatment.”
QueerDoc, which is embroiled in a legal battle with the U.S. Dept. of Justice, called the closure of Identity a “huge loss.”
“This is what healthcare inequity looks like in real time,” the group claimed.
QueerDoc, however, is facing difficulties as well. Last summer the DOJ subpoenaed the group, seeking internal documents as part of an investigation into potential federal healthcare offenses by QueerDoc.
QueerDoc challenged the subpoena in the U.S. District Court, claiming that the investigation was not a legitimate law enforcement effort, but was motivated by the Trump administration’s goal of ending the distribution of cross-sex drugs.
In October, a Biden-appointee judge blocked the subpoena, claiming the Trump administration was unfairly targeting QueerDoc due to policy concerns, not legal issues.
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The DOJ appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and oral arguments occurred last month in Seattle. The appeal remains ongoing, with no final decision.
This case is one of several involving DOJ subpoenas sent to over 20 transgender clinics in an effort to investigate groups that provide what has been described as “chemical and surgical mutilation.”
The Trump administration has maintained that the investigation is a legitimate law enforcement effort to protect children from experimental and unsafe medical procedures that lack strong evidence while carrying serious risks of infertility, bone density loss, and other harms.
The DOJ maintains that administrative subpoenas under HIPAA (18 U.S.C. § 3486) have a low bar for enforcement and that public policy statements do not invalidate an otherwise valid probe into potential federal violations.
Last year, the Alaska State Medical Board issued a statement in opposition to transgender surgeries and hormonal treatments for gender-confused youth “due to insufficient evidence of long-term benefits and risks of irreversible harm.”
“We view these interventions as lacking legitimacy as standard medical practice for those under the age of 18 years old,” the Alaska State Medical Board stated last March. “We support legislative limits on such treatments and promote psychological support and counseling as safer alternatives. This reflects our duty to protect patients and uphold evidence-based care.”
