The Vanderbilt Program for LGBTQ Health laid off five staff members on June 24, 2025, per the Tennessee Transgender Task Force. 

The Vanderbilt University Medical Center Program for LGBTQ Health aims to provide high-quality, patient care, education, research and advocacy for the LGBTQ community. Per its website, LGBTQ patients experience disparities in access to and quality of care, which can lead to preventable adverse health outcomes and increased rates of suicide and depression. The Vanderbilt Program for LGBTQ Health hopes to address these disparities through its programs. 

With these layoffs, programs run by the former staff — including the Trans Buddy Program — have been halted. The Trans Buddy Program paired transgender patients with a support volunteer who could provide emotional, informational and procedural support during healthcare encounters, free of charge. The five total staff members that lost their positions included the director, assistant director and trans buddy coordinator. 

“The implications will be felt throughout the community, as the Program was able to connect many people who already have hesitations about interacting with the healthcare complex due to sexual orientation or gender identity to culturally competent and affirming care inside or outside of the VUMC system,” Tennessee Transgender Task Force wrote on its Instagram. 

These layoffs come after the announcement that VUMC is letting go of approximately 650 employees (primarily in research, administrative and other support areas) amidst $300 million budget cuts. Per VUMC, this is in response to budgetary actions in Washington D.C. that impacted areas related to government-sponsored research and patient care. 

“While this is extremely difficult, the staffing loss represents less than 2% of VUMC’s total workforce,” a VUMC representative said in a message to The Hustler. “VUMC sees more than 3.5 million patient visits each year and remains committed to meeting the needs of all who depend on us for health care. To accommodate the growing demand for care, VUMC is continuing to hire frontline clinical staff for the opening of the 180-bed Jim Ayers Tower later this year.”

The Vanderbilt Program of LGBTQ Health Community Advisory Board wrote an open letter to VUMC that was posted to the Tennessee Transgender Task Force Instagram on June 27. The letter calls for VUMC to break its silence on these issues and publicly show its support for the LGBTQ community. 

“Repeatedly, the Community Advisory Board has sent this message to the Medical Center’s leadership: your silence is itself violence. Even if there are ongoing efforts and strategic maneuvering to maintain the care the Center offers outside of our earshot, the institution’s tight-lip about those efforts with the communities and persons it otherwise seeks to support is, in and of itself, a perpetuation of the hurts they experience elsewhere-and with no small irony, at the very place that has put itself forward as a shelter from that storm,” the letter reads. 

Ray Holloman, chair of the LGBTQ community advisory board, said that this layoff occurring at the end of pride month was an extra blow to the community. Holloman clarified that the community advisory board is a volunteer organization; Holloman and other board members do not work for Vanderbilt. 

“I feel like these were very targeted because the people that were impacted were the Vivid Health Clinic, the program for LGBTQ health and the HIV navigator nurses,” Holloman said. “It kind of feels like, if it’s anything to do with a marginalized community that can be deemed as DEI, those positions seem to be targeted first. That’s what seems to have happened here, at least from my perspective.”

Anne-Marie Zanzal, a member of the LGBTQ community advisory board, echoed Holloman’s view. Zanzal added that the loss of the program for LGBTQ health sends the message to the community that their health and safety are negotiable.  

“Given the pattern of targeting we’ve seen over the last year — from the release of trans patients’ medical records to now eliminating the DEI Department,  the LGBTQ Health Program and the HIV Navigator nurses — it’s hard to believe these layoffs weren’t intentional,” Zanzal said. “When the only departments affected are those serving marginalized communities, especially queer and trans folks and people living with HIV, we have to call it what it is: systemic discrimination masked as restructuring. Whether or not VUMC admits it, the impact is crystal clear.”

The Hustler was not able to independently verify that the only departments affected were those serving marginalized communities. 

Holloman added that, in the past, Vanderbilt consistently stood up for the trans community. In 2018, VUMC was one of the first organizations in the South to open a clinic to provide gender-affirming care to trans patients. 

“There was this reputation of Vanderbilt really having the trans community’s back, and that has no longer been the case since about 2022,” Holloman said. “It’s really disheartening to see somebody that used to be so strongly a supporter of our community kind of just continue to walk back and lose their reputation.”

The Metro Nashville Council’s LGBTQ Caucus also wrote a letter to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s leadership on July 1. Councilmember Olivia Hill, a transgender woman and former VUMC volunteer, said that VUMC sought the support and trust of the caucus, and that she appeared in VUMC campaigns promising a commitment to inclusive care. The letter also said that VUMC withdrew medical support from the Nashville Pride Festival. 

“A growing pattern of decisions has revealed a troubling truth,” Hill said. “As our community has faced heightened threats and scrutiny, VUMC has consistently stepped back instead of standing up.”