Samuel Redfern believes USC is one of the safer places to be a transgender man in the United States right now. <\/p>\n
But Redfern realized he didn\u2019t fully trust university officials to have his back as a trans student last October while he waited over two weeks for the university to decide on President Trump\u2019s \u201cCompact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education<\/a>.\u201d A proposition that would give universities that accepted the terms preferential funding. USC declined to join the compact in October 2025. <\/p>\n \u201cI was definitely worried on some level that they were going to take that deal,\u201d said Redfern, a second-year majoring in neuroscience. <\/p>\n Redfern regularly checks Erin in the Morning<\/a>, a LGBTQ+ legislation tracking newsletter run by independent trans journalist Erin Reed.<\/p>\n From the Supreme Court ruling to reverse bans<\/a> on conversion therapy in Colorado to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic team barring trans-athletes<\/a> from competing in women\u2019s events, legislation is overrun with anti-trans rulings.<\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s campaign against transgender rights reflects anti-LGBTQ+ objectives outlined in Project 2025<\/a>, a conservative guidebook for the administration\u2019s second term. The administration has targeted trans athletes, barred trans soldiers from serving in the military and threatened to cut funding for gender-affirming care programs at a wave of hospitals nationwide. <\/p>\n Since his election, Trans citizens across the U.S. have faced reductions in gender affirming care. <\/p>\n L.A. lost one of the oldest pediatric gender clinics in the country<\/a> last July. Children\u2019s Hospital Los Angeles ended its Development and Gender-Affirming Care surgical program because of a \u201cneed to safeguard CHLA\u2019s ability to operate amid significant external pressures beyond our control,\u201d said CHLA executives in an email to the patient community.<\/p>\n Two months after the federal government threatened to pull funding<\/a> from hospitals that provide gender affirming care to minors, NYU Langone Health discontinued<\/a> its Transgender Youth Health program on Feb. 17. <\/p>\n On Feb. 23, Vanderbilt University Medical Center stopped providing<\/a> surgical gender-affirming care for adults and canceled all previously scheduled surgeries \u201cdue to operational limitations and lack of surgical coverage,\u201d said VUMC Chief Communications Officer John Howser in a statement to Annenberg media. <\/p>\n Keck Medicine of USC has continued to offer gender-affirming care services to adults. Launched in 2022, the USC Gender Affirming Care Program<\/a> offers services such as hormone therapy, surgical care, voice therapy and occupational therapy.<\/p>\n USC Chief Campus Health Officer Sarah Van Orman said Keck would continue to offer gender-affirming care for adults. <\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t anticipate at this point any changes in those programs,\u201d Van Orman said.<\/p>\n Redfern, who receives hormone therapy from Keck, said he\u2019s had a great experience, aside from the USC pharmacy\u2019s requirement to file patients under their legal name.<\/p>\n \u201cOften, the people there don\u2019t know I have a preferred name, and then will just shout out my legal name, and that\u2019s a little bit awkward,\u201d said Redfern.<\/p>\n He also noted that the university allows students to have only their legal name on their USCard<\/a>, which adds to the problem. <\/p>\n Although Keck continues to offer gender-affirming care amidst the surrounding crackdowns, the Trump Administration has targeted USC\u2019s gender inclusive policies in the past. <\/p>\n Sent to nine colleges in October, the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education called for policy changes on subjects such as diversity values, international student enrollment and gender inclusivity in exchange for federal funding. It required universities to recognize gender solely on the basis of biological characteristics. <\/p>\n The compact threatened the presence of gender-inclusive campus spaces such as gender-inclusive housing, the LGBTQ+ Student Center<\/a> (LGBTQ+SC), the Queer & Ally Student Assembly<\/a> (QUASA) and the Rainbow floor, a LGBTQ+-centered living-learning community that USC will no longer offer in the 2026-2027 academic year. <\/p>\n \u201cThose kinds of places I went to mostly when I was a freshman, and that\u2019s how I met a lot of folks,\u201d fourth-year history major Isabel Jasen-Montoy said about QUASA and LGBTQ+SC. <\/p>\n Redfern said meeting other trans individuals in the student center opened his eyes to what was possible for him. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a really positive journey,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are not a lot of trans elders. So it was important for me to see people, even just a couple of years older than me, moving on to the next steps of their career, and being able to live their lives.\u201d <\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s other anti-trans initiatives have trickled from the federal level. At the State of the Union Address in February, Trump demanded that schools ban trans youth<\/a> from being able to transition without parental consent socially. <\/p>\n Three days later, about 1,700 transgender Kansans had their driver\u2019s licenses invalidated<\/a> because of Kansas Senate Bill 244. <\/a>The law states that licenses bearing gender markers inconsistent with the assigned sex at birth are null and must be surrendered to the Kansas Division of Vehicles. <\/p>\n It also prohibits trans Kansans from updating their identification or birth certificates to reflect a gender identity different from their assigned sex at birth. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is an action that\u2019s only going to apply to trans people, so it\u2019s very targeted,\u201d said Redfern. \u201cIt\u2019s very predatory and extremely discriminatory, to an egregious level.\u201d<\/p>\n The invalidation was effective immediately after the bill passed, leaving many trans citizens without the legal ability to drive or vote.<\/p>\n