A public school district in Massachusetts hosts an “LGBTQ Support” webpage that routes students and caregivers to healthcare organizations that promote “gender-affirming” medical services.

Framingham Public Schools’ (FPS) “LGBTQ Support” page is buried but live, and promotes entities such as the New England Transgender Healthcare Consortium and the Child and Adolescent Transgender Center for Health (CATCH).

Both organizations note on their respective websites that they support “gender-affirming” services for adolescents, with the New England Transgender Healthcare Consortium routing visitors to centers that provide puberty blockers, while CATCH states that it provides access to hormone blockers, as well as estrogen and testosterone.

Defending Education, a parental rights group, first flagged the school district’s promotion of these entities.

“None of this information belongs on a school district website. It is not the role of the public school system to provide resources about health centers where students can access ‘medical transition’ services,” Erika Sanzi, senior director of communications at Defending Education, told Heartlander News. “The school district calls this support – are those same school officials going to be offering support when students are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives after being permanently harmed by one of the clinics listed on their website?”

The suburban Boston school district of about 8,500 students did not respond to Heartlander News’ requests for comment.

Though its “LGBTQ Support” page is not easily accessed through the district’s main website navigation, it can be found by using the site’s internal search function.

FPS uses language lifted directly from the two organizations’ own descriptions of their work on the support page.

Of the New England Transgender Healthcare Consortium, the page states it “consist[s] of providers from over one dozen healthcare facilities in New England who are dedicated to improving access to gender-affirming care.” As for CATCH, it says the center’s “dedicated clinical team” is “committed to providing support and care to children, adolescents, and young adults across the gender spectrum [,] whether you or your child identify as transgender, non-binary, or is gender exploring.”

The New England Transgender Healthcare Consortium promotes “gender-affirming hormones” for adults and adolescents, including puberty blockers, noting which clinics offer those services. The site also lists children’s hospitals that complete vaginoplasties and phalloplasties, as well as providers for top surgeries and voice surgeries. Some of the centers endorsed by the consortium clearly state on their websites that vaginoplasties or phalloplasties are reserved for patients over 18.

The consortium also notes that CATCH, which is a part of the Department of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center, offers “medical services” to “transition” both adults and adolescents.

CATCH lists “access to onsite hormone blockers (both injections and implants)” and “gender-affirming hormone therapy (estrogen and testosterone)” as “gender-affirming” care options to be discussed between patients, families and medical providers.

Notably, President Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 29, 2025, directing relevant federal agencies to eliminate funding that advanced gender ideology and “discriminatory equity ideology” for K-12 schools.

The Office of the Commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released a statement in February 2025 that “in light of recent communications from the White House and the U.S. Education Department, I want to share the following with you: … It is essential that schools should continue their support for marginalized students – including LGBTQ students – to reinforce that they belong in their school communities.”



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