Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) laid off the staff of its LGBTQ Health Program in late June, effectively shuttering a resource that helped LGBTQ+ people access and navigate healthcare for the last decade.
Members of the institution’s LGBTQ Health Community Advisory Board and a former member of the program’s office staff say VUMC quietly eliminated the office and its Trans Buddy program on June 24 with no notice to the community or the patients served by the program’s resources.
Instead, the Community Advisory Board learned of the layoffs from affected employees and shared the information along with an open letter to VUMC administrators on social media.
The layoffs did not impact medical staff at VUMC’s Vivid Health Clinic, which continues to offer medical care, according to Community Advisory Board Chair Ray Holloman and Dahron Johnson, the board’s immediate past chair.
Spokespeople for VUMC did not respond to multiple requests for comment or detailed questions about the staff terminations. VUMC previously issued a statement on June 30 confirming that it expects to lay off 650 research, administrative and support employees due to grant and funding cuts made by the Trump Administration.
The news spurred the Metro Council of Nashville’s LGBTQ Caucus to publish a letter to the health organization on July 1, expressing its “deep disappointment” in VUMC’s “pattern of decisions — both actions and inactions — that have left a once-loyal community feeling misled, abandoned, and deeply betrayed.”
Caucus members cited VUMC’s 2022 pause of gender-affirming surgeries for minors, 2023 release of transgender patients’ medical records to the Tennessee Attorney General, April 2025 elimination of its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs and the institution’s withdrawal of medical support from the 2025 Nashville Pride Festival as reasons for the caucus’ statement of no confidence in VUMC leadership.
“This is not about red tape or resources. This is about values. Each of these moments was a chance to show conviction. Instead, you revealed where your priorities lie,” the caucus letter states. “You failed us. You stood on our backs as we lifted you up. You benefited from our trust, our pride, and our presence. And when we needed you most, you betrayed us. We will not forget.”
Johnson, a transgender woman who graduated from Vanderbilt Divinity School in 2008 and has gone on to become a chaplain and serve on multiple community boards, described the LGBTQ Health Program’s abrupt closure as a betrayal of VUMC’s clinical promises to put patients’ needs first.
“There is no hiding the fact that (the LGBTQ+ community) have been targeted in the ways we’ve been targeted,” Johnson said. “When you offer care, we as patients, as a community, are looking for you to stand by the thing that you have willingly, openly committed yourself to. This type of last-second, in-the-middle-of-the-night closure is just absolutely reprehensible and an utter dereliction of the basics of care, whether that’s (for) trans folks or any other type of person.”
Quinn Bacon was preparing to train her replacement as coordinator for VUMC’s Trans Buddy program when she was told the position was eliminated, effective June 30 – the last day of Pride Month.
Bacon, a transgender woman, started in the role in January 2023, ensuring that the program’s phone line was staffed 12 hours each day to answer questions about resources, community, safety, and more. People could also call the line to request a “Trans Buddy” — one of the volunteers trained by Bacon — to accompany them to any appointment at any VUMC location for support.
“There were times that patients were put in unsafe situations or were experiencing medical neglect, and by having a Trans Buddy there to provide community support while also advocating for them to be treated fairly in the hospital, we were able to help people get what they needed and feel humanized at the same time,” Bacon said.
She planned to leave in August upon completing graduate school. Bacon, her boss and her predecessors believed the role was a part-time federal work study position, she said. While she could not continue work study, she planned to keep volunteering with the program.
During a call with VUMC Human Resources staff in late June, Bacon found out she’d lost her job, and she wouldn’t be offered any severance because the role was classified as temporary, she said. (VUMC’s June 30 statement said it would provide severance and other assistance to affected employees).
The HR team was at first unaware she still worked at VUMC, and didn’t know she was still a student, despite her work badge identifying her as a student worker, she said.
They also told her the position was not, in fact, paid through work study. Bacon said she thought of the opportunities she’d passed on in order to stay eligible for the coordinator position — a fellowship she turned down when she found out it was funded through federal work study, and her library job she had to quit “because I was told that the Trans Buddy program maxes out my hours.”
VUMC representatives did not respond to questions about Bacon’s termination.
The end of the Trans Buddy program is also personal for Johnson, who called the program’s number in early 2020 after having her own “now or never” moment, Johnson said. The person she spoke with helped her connect with clinical providers and informed her about ways to set up a visit. That person was one of the people who lost their job in June, Johnson said.
A call to the Trans Buddy phone number Monday rang through to an error message after multiple rings.
Johnson said the LGBTQ Health Program office and the Trans Buddy program also served as a sort of clearinghouse for LGBTQ resources at VUMC, an entry point and navigator for patients seeking care and a source of education for hospital services and providers.
Holloman said the office staff provided awareness training to “ensure that if trans or queer people are interacting with these staff, they don’t get misgendered, they’re looking at their records, they push to get gender identity and sexual orientation and legal sex and all of these things into the health record so that people would feel comfortable coming there.”
Bacon said patients planning to go to VUMC now “should plan to bring people with them that they want to protect them. They should not expect that the hospital will provide people that will do that sort of advocacy work.”
The Trans Buddy program and gender-affirming care were part of the Tennessee Office of the Attorney General’s demand for documents in 2023 for what it said was an investigation into possible violations of the Tennessee Medicaid False Claims Act.
The demand included volunteer resumes, emails sent by members of the general public to an LGBTQ+ health questions portal and communications with outside therapists, in addition to the names of people who were referred to Vanderbilt for transgender care but opted not to pursue it. Any medical records reviewed under investigations into billing are kept confidential, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office stated in 2023.
A VUMC spokesperson at the time stated the institution did not comply with every demand for records, without elaboration.
Several patients sued VUMC in Davidson County Chancery Court following the disclosure of their medical records. The case went into mediation on May 30 and was settled as of June 11, according to court records that do not specify the terms of the settlement.
Holloman, a transgender man who has received care through the Vivid Clinic, said administrative decisions have eroded trust in VUMC in recent years. The Community Advisory Board for the LGBTQ Health Program anticipated the program would be dismantled given “the way Vanderbilt has been trending over the last few years.”
“It’s become very hard to have a lot of trust in this mammoth institution that has been kind of a pillar in the community for forever, and now just kind of see them say, ‘You know what? We are going to back away from everything. We’re not going to try to fight,’” Holloman said.
If Holloman had a “magic wand,” rebuilding trust in the community would start with bringing back the terminated positions and the employees who filled them, but it would be a “long road,” he said.
“Trans Buddy and all of the other programs that they had made it so people could access healthcare,” Holloman said. “They are a healthcare organization … with the moves that they’ve just made, they are discouraging people now from accessing health care until it becomes an emergency.”
Anita Wadhwani contributed to this story, which is made available from Tennessee Lookout through Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.