Montreal City Weblog

Kate 12:08 on 2026-05-12 Permalink Reply  

• jeather 12:50 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  Under age 19. But there are some — I remember someone a bit ahead of me complaining when he started undergrad in Montreal he was underage (I assume 17) and couldn’t (legally) drink, and then when they invited him to visit grad schools in the US he was 20 and couldn’t legally drink.

• CE 14:06 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  How many people does this actually affect? It only affects 1st year students which I imagine are about 1/4 of the undergrad population, only Americans, and only students transitioning. Statistically, there’s very much a possibility that zero people are actually affected.

• Kevin 14:48 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  I know an 18-year-old McGill student from the USA who is trans, although I don’t know if they are the student referred to in this article.

• John B 14:56 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  I’ve actually been going to McGill as a 1st-year undergrad this year, and there are a lot of Americans, and more than a few people visibly transitioning, even in first-year classes.

  According to the article “Gimbert said the doctors at the meeting said they had already refused HRT to two U.S. students under the age of 19.” It may not be many people, but the whole point of accessibility and non-discrimination is to not discriminate against small groups.

• Kate 15:00 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  Is it not possible that the McGill medics won’t give someone these treatments, knowing they will not be able to continue them when they return home? Rather than that they’re obeying U.S. law, I mean.

  I can’t imagine it’s good for anyone to have these hormones turning on and off like a tap.

• jeather 15:16 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  I don’t think that doctors should be not treating someone because maybe they will eventually have trouble accessing the treatment in the future. Or because a different country isn’t in support of it.

• John B 15:22 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  My understanding is that they’re not giving the treatment because they don’t want to end up on an American list, with the implication being that they could face prosecution if they go to the US in the future.

• jeather 15:43 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  I think it’s wrong. They cannot possibly be extradited for this, so worrying about effects on future travel is really putting the patient’s needs last. I am barely sympathetic to the doctors who don’t give legal pregnancy treatments because then they will need to fight their anti-abortion states, this is many layers of more protection.

• R T 16:18 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  I’ve worked in student services and was trying to figure out if there was a jurisdictional hook (eg, McGill participates in some US Federal Student Aid (Title IV) programs so certain US student rights can attach to US students at McGill), but the more I read about it, the more I think this is individual healthcare providers freelancing out of concern for their own personal safety and not university policy. That concern seems pretty tenuous—the only criminal law cited in the executive order is the US’s anti-FGM law, that law applies only to those under 18, not 19, and extraterritorial application to the provider would be extremely difficult—though I understand why providers of trans healthcare would feel unsafe right now.

  But if a student doesn’t tell the provider that they’re from the US, it’s not clear to me how the provider would know. I assume that they see the patient is being billed to Blue Cross, hear the accent and ask.

  (It’s also extremely weird that the executive order is about those aged under 19, not 18. I’m not a lawyer, and especially not a US lawyer, but I can’t think of any other instance in the US where 18 vs 19 is an important distinction as opposed to 17/18 or, much more rarely (smoking, drinking, credit card borrowing), 20/21. Of course, the EO is most likely just typical Trump administration vibes-based BS and not actual legal interpretation.)

• Nicholas 16:54 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  Kate, your argument about the doctors being worried that the students might lose treatment when they went home could make sense if all US students were banned. But here it’s the ones with the most time before going home being banned: students about to graduate and leave don’t have an issue, apparently.

  I also wonder if this would apply to dual citizens who have lived here their entire lives. Or permanent residents? Or is it just people on student visas directly from the US? What about dual US/DE citizens who grew up in Germany and are here on a student visa and have never been to the US?

• Kate 20:57 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  Then I wonder whether the McGill clinic is denying abortions to American students.

• Chris 22:45 on 2026-05-12 Permalink

  Hmmm, not old enough to modify one’s body with a tattoo, but somehow old enough to modify one’s body with hormone treatment…

• Joey 09:35 on 2026-05-13 Permalink

  Not old enough to modify one’s body with a tattoo, but somehow old enough to modify one’s body with an ear piercing gun…

• jeather 16:04 on 2026-05-13 Permalink

  Yes, best to stop all children from modifying their bodies with external hormones. Sorry, diabetics! Guess it’s fatal again. Sorry kids with precocial puberty, sorry kids with growth hormone deficiencies, sorry kids with underactive thyroids. sorry kids who have hormone imbalances from cancer. Can’t modify your bodies with exogenous hormones anymore.

• Ian 22:20 on 2026-05-13 Permalink

  Well put, jeather.

  @Chris back in my day we were giving each other tattoos and piercings as young as 12. You must be sheltered.