The Oregon Department of Corrections has hired a gender-affirming care coordinator, a new position with an annual salary between $78,000 and $115,000, even as the agency projects a $55 million budget deficit for 2026. The coordinator will oversee a program focused on managing and monitoring the needs and safety risks of transgender, intersex, and non-binary adults in custody, according to the job listing. The role also includes chairing a multidisciplinary team that addresses individualized needs of those inmates.
The hire continues gender-related initiatives championed by Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, a Democrat who is pursuing re-election to a second term. It follows a 2023 review of the state's only women-only prison, the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, 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.
The review included an account from a transgender resident at Coffee Creek who said her request to continue hormone blocker treatment went unheeded. She described being bounced between departments and said the delay resulted in her menstruating again, calling the experience terrorizing and humiliating. In response to the findings, Kotek said her administration would confront the issues head-on and created the Advisory Panel on Gender Responsive Practices in Corrections. That panel recommended training staff on the needs of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse inmates, though it did not specifically recommend creating the coordinator position now filled.
The new role is similar to one that would have been established under Senate Bill 1120, a measure that failed to pass. That bill would have created a position tasked with coordinating efforts and training across staff and adults in custody on best practices for supporting transgender, nonbinary, or gender-diverse individuals in the corrections system.
The hiring comes as Kotek has instructed state agencies to reduce spending. Oregon's revenue declined after federal tax code changes passed by Republicans in Washington, D.C., altered definitions of taxable income that the state mirrors. State reports show a general fund balance of negative $373.7 million. In a letter to department heads, Kotek asked them to leave no stone unturned to save taxpayer dollars, saying the challenge was not unique to Oregon but that the state's response would define it.
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 those constraints, Kotek has continued to highlight transgender care as a priority. In 2023, she signed a legislative package on reproductive and gender-affirming care, stating that gender-affirming care is health care, period. She has also pushed back against federal efforts to restrict funding for hospitals that provide transgender procedures to minors, arguing that major medical organizations recognize such care as important for keeping young people safe and supported.
Kotek's office did not respond to inquiries about the new position or additional details about its duties.