This post is part of a series providing in-depth and accessible breakdowns of Freestate Justice’s various policy objectives and accomplishments over the past 2024 Legislative Session within the Maryland General Assembly. For more posts like this, check out Freestate’s 2024 Legislative Session Reflection Series. 2024 has been quite eventful for LGBTQ+ Marylanders, with Freestate Justice and its coalition partners being involved in advocating for many bills that will affect the lives and well-being of Maryland’s LGBTQ+ community. One such piece of legislation that FSJ helped to pass this previous session was Senate Bill 119. This law will modify Maryland’s Health Code to include gender-affirming treatment (such as top surgery and hormone replacement therapy) within the definition of “legally protected healthcare.” Under the previous state of affairs, state law did not explicitly protect gender-affirming healthcare. This lack of protection led to much ambiguity regarding whether healthcare providers who administered this kind of care to patients (or the individuals who received it) would be subject to legal penalties, including fines and incarceration. Gender-affirming care is critically important to so many members of the LGBTQ+ community. The ability of people to define and express their gender is a human right, with a wealth of literature showing that access to gender-affirming healthcare for transgender and nonbinary individuals mitigates feelings of gender dysphoria (distress associated with a mismatch between one’s gender identity and their sex-related physical characteristics). Solidifying access to this form of support within the health code makes progress toward addressing many existing health inequities and injustices, creating a more affirming Maryland for all.