UAB student Lee Macon

Transgender University of Alabama at Birmingham student Lee Macon hopes to be the first person to start cross-sex hormone therapy through the school if UAB decides to offer the treatment at its Student Health and Wellness Center. (Tamika Moore/tmoore@al.com)

(TAMIKA MOORE )

The University of Alabama at Birmingham is considering making cross-sex hormone therapy available as a treatment option for transgender student patients of its Student Health and Wellness Center hoping to physically transition between gender identities.

Jake Baggott, executive director of UAB Student Health and Wellness, told AL.com Wednesday that the school is "engaged in that conversation," but he could not provide "a particular timeframe" for a decision about whether the university will begin to offer the therapy.

"We're certainly looking at this, but we haven't come to any particular decision on it," he said. "We certainly are examining that, but a final outcome is not determined at this point. But we are very sensitive to what our students' needs are, so if there's a way we can address those needs here, we'll certainly look at that."

The treatment, also known as hormone replacement therapy, involves giving biologically-male transgender individuals estrogen or giving biologically-female transgender individuals testosterone to help induce feminizing or masculinizing physical characteristics.

Lee Macon, a 21-year-old transgender man from a small Tennessee town majoring in psychology at UAB, said he hopes to be the first person to receive cross-sex hormone therapy at the school. He says he is in the process of acquiring the necessary approvals to be ready to get the treatment if UAB approves it.

"There are a few people who are already getting hormone therapy and now they'll be getting it from UAB, which is really awesome because the vast majority of universities don't offer that," he said, adding that if the school decides to provide the treatment in the near future, "I'll be going through UAB. I'll be the first person to start there."

Asked whether UAB's student insurance plan, available through VIVA Health, would cover the therapy if the school were to offer it, Baggott said he was not sure: "Not necessarily. I can't make a global statement about that. Some insurance plans do, others don't."

However it would be paid for, the move would put UAB in the relatively short but growing list of schools, from Harvard University to the University of Michigan, to offer the service to students. And it would help to cement the university's burgeoning reputation as a leader on transgender rights and sexual health in the south, joining Emory University in Atlanta as one of the only schools in the region to offer the treatment.

Macon said that being able to get hormone therapy through UAB would help him avoid negative encounters with medical practitioners, of which he has had several in the past.

"I had an experience with a 'trans-friendly' endocrinologist and she gave me a 15-minute lecture about how I'll 'always be a woman' ... She told me, 'you don't know what you're getting into," Macon said. "So we're kind of working on just resource-building. With all of the resources in Birmingham, it's very scattered, and you have to have internal knowledge to find them. It goes back to being disjointed."

Maigen Sullivan, coordinator of LGBT programs, outreach and services at UAB, said last week that the school is "working on a lot of things and we're not ready to release them yet," but that cross-sex hormone therapy is one potential option on the table.

"They're working on it. Like I said it's all really complicated. It sounds like a doctor should just be able to prescribe hormones, and that's it, but there's a lot more that goes into it," she said. "They're working it out and kind of feeling out where it will go."

But she said that UAB is very aware of the potential danger of not making UAB a safe and accepting space for transgender individuals.

"Trans people have a lot higher rates of dropping out of college, violence toward them, being kicked out of their homes, and things like homelessness and poverty disproportionately affect trans students as well," Sullivan said.