The Oregon Department of Corrections has hired a gender-affirming care coordinator, a position earning between $78,000 and $115,000 per year, to oversee services for transgender, intersex and non-binary adults in custody. The hire comes as the agency projects a $55 million deficit in 2026, raising questions about spending priorities during a period of budget shortfalls.
The new role includes managing and monitoring the needs and safety risks of transgender, intersex and non-binary inmates, according to the job listing. The coordinator will also chair a multidisciplinary team focused on the individualized needs of these prisoners. The position continues gender-related initiatives championed by Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, a longtime supporter of the transgender community who is seeking re-election to a second term.
The hire follows a 2023 review of Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Oregon’s only women-only prison, which found that transgender residents were being denied or delayed access to needed care, including hormone replacement therapy. The report said this created significant medical and mental health issues for some residents, including gender dysphoria. It cited one example of a transgender resident at Coffee Creek who said her request to continue hormone blocker treatment had gone 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. Now I’ve gotten my period twice. It’s been terrorizing and humiliating,” the resident, a biological woman, said in the report.
Kotek promised to address the 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,” Kotek said in a press release at the time. “The GIPA report was sobering to read. It is incumbent on Oregon’s corrections system to ensure that the use of carceral settings yield the best possible public safety outcomes and sets people up for successful re-entry.”
As part of the response, her office created the Advisory Panel on Gender Responsive Practices in Corrections. The panel recommended training staff who make decisions about housing, medical and behavioral care on the needs of transgender, nonbinary and gender diverse inmates. However, the panel did not specifically recommend the gender-affirming care coordinator position itself.
The new role is similar to a position that would have been created through SB 1120, a failed bill that sought to coordinate efforts and training across staff and inmates on best practices for supporting transgender, nonbinary or gender-diverse adults in custody.
The hire appears to clash with Kotek’s instruction to state agencies to reduce spending. In 2025, when Republicans in Washington passed tax cuts through President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, Oregon’s tax picture changed. The state’s tax code mirrors many federal definitions of taxable income, and when those definitions shrank, Oregon’s revenue dropped, leaving the state with a negative $373.7 million general fund balance, according to state reports.
“This is not what we had planned for, but it is what we must do. I am asking you to leave no stone unturned to save taxpayer dollars,” Kotek wrote in a letter to state department heads. “This challenge is not unique to Oregon, but how we respond will be. Our resilience, teamwork and determination have carried us through hard times before. They will again.”
The Department of Corrections was instructed to slow operational spending, prepare for operational cost reductions and suspend non-essential out-of-state travel to address its projected deficit. Despite these measures, Kotek has continued to highlight transgender care as a priority, calling gender-affirming care part of health care.
“I want to be very clear. Gender-affirming care is health care. Period, end of story,” Kotek said at a bill signing in 2023 after the legislature passed a reproductive and gender-affirming care package. She has also pushed back against attempts from the Trump administration to limit federal funding for hospitals that provide transgender procedures to minors.
“The Trump administration cannot change the rules and restrict funding to hospitals and doctors who provide gender-affirming care to young people,” Kotek said in a video release. “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’s office did not respond to inquiries about the new position and additional details about its duties.