Rady Children’s Health to stop transgender care amid Trump admin threats
California’s largest pediatric health system will stop providing gender-affirming medical care to transgender youth next month, under growing pressure from the federal government.
Rady Children’s Health, which includes Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego and Rady Children’s of Riverside County, said the organization was recently referred for investigation to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.
The federal agency, which oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs, had no comment on the timing of its investigation or the focus of the investigation Friday, saying that the “general policy of the HHS-OIG is to neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.”
But patients at Rady Children’s and CHOC were told they would no longer receive gender-affirming care at the facilities, which can include prescriptions for medications like puberty blockers, starting Feb. 6, advocates say. As a result, patients who are not taking medications like puberty blockers will not be able to consult a doctor and have a specialized healthcare professional guide them through the process of stopping the medication.
“The environment around gender-affirming care has changed dramatically, with intensifying federal actions,” Rady Children’s Health said in a statement. “These developments affect our role and responsibilities as a participating provider in federal programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, which are essential to caring for all children and families in our communities. »
In December, HHS announced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services was proposing new rules that would prohibit gender-affirming care provided by medical providers participating in its programs.
“Nearly all U.S. hospitals participate in Medicare and Medicaid, and this action is intended to ensure that the U.S. government will not do business with organizations that, intentionally or unintentionally, cause permanent harm to children,” the department said at the time.
The department said officials would also propose additional rules to prohibit Medicaid and other funding from being used for gender-affirming care for children or adults under 19.
Rady Children’s Health said the decision to stop providing such interventions, procedures and medical prescriptions to patients was “very difficult” and “made to ensure we can continue to serve all children and families in the communities we serve.”
LGTBQ+ advocacy organizations say the move is another example of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to mischaracterize legitimate care supported by major U.S. medical associations and erode access to services, in part on the false premise that transgender people do not exist.
Many hospitals across the country, including in California, have already given up on gender-affirming care or closed entire programs under growing pressure from the federal government.
In July, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles officially closed what was one of the largest and oldest pediatric gender clinics in the United States. For years, the clinic provided puberty blockers, hormones and other procedures to trans youth on public insurance.
That has forced transgender children and their families to move — sometimes to other states and out of the country — to seek medical care, said Brit Cervantes, founder of OCGAPNet, an organization that advocates for trans rights.
“It’s a very clear message that is being sent: transgender people, and especially transgender youth, do not have the right to exist, and we do not have the right to have access to health care,” Cervantes said. “All of this rhetoric that accompanies these hostile policies is truly damaging. »
OCGAPNet and Pride at the Pier, another Orange County-based organization, are holding a rally outside Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange at noon Saturday to call on hospital leaders to resist federal pressure. TransFamily Support Services and the TransYouth Rights Alliance are also holding a protest at 11 a.m. Saturday in front of Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego.
“It’s not going to stop with transgender kids,” said Kanan Durham, director of Pride at the Pier. “The administration is testing how easily it can force a hospital to betray its patients. It is using its purse strings as a weapon to tell us who can receive care and who cannot.”
