Rady Children’s Health to suspend transgender care amid threats from Trump administration
California’s largest children’s health plan will stop providing gender-affirming medical care to transgender youth next month amid mounting pressure from the federal government.
Rady Children’s Health, which includes Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego and Rady Children’s of Riverside County, said the organization was recently referred for investigation to the Office of Inspector General of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The federal agency, which oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs, did not comment on the timeline or focus of its investigation Friday, saying “HHS-OIG’s general policy is to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.”
But patients at Rady Children’s and CHOC have been told they will no longer receive gender-affirming care at the facilities, which can include prescriptions for drugs such as birth control pills, starting Feb. 6, according to the lawyers. As a result, patients who are not on medication such as anti-puberty will not be able to see a doctor and have a medical specialist refer them to a drug withdrawal program.
“The landscape around gender-affirming care has changed dramatically, with increasing federal actions,” Rady Children’s Health said in a statement. “These developments affect our role and responsibilities as providers participating in government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, which are essential to the care of all children and families in our communities.”
In December, HHS announced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is proposing new rules that would prohibit gender-affirming care by medical providers who participate in its programs.
“Almost all US hospitals participate in Medicare and Medicaid and this action is designed to ensure that the US government will not do business with organizations that intentionally or unintentionally harm children,” the department said at the time.
The department said officials will also propose additional rules to prohibit Medicaid and other funds from being used for sexual care of children or adults under the age of 19.
Rady Children’s Health said the decision to stop providing medical care, procedures and patient prescriptions is “extremely difficult” and “made to ensure we can continue to serve all children and families in all the communities we serve.”
LGTBQ+ advocacy groups say the move is another example of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to discredit legitimate care supported by major US medical organizations and destroy access to services based on the false premise that transgender people don’t exist.
Many hospitals across the country, including in California, have already withdrawn from gender-affirming care or closed all programs amid growing pressure from the federal government.
In July, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles officially closed what was among the largest and oldest pediatric sex clinics in the United States. For many years, the clinic provided contraceptives, hormones and other procedures for the changing youth on public insurance.
This has forced transgender children and their families to move — sometimes to other states and out of the country — to seek health care, said Brit Cervantes, founder of OCGAPNet, a human rights organization.
“It sends a very clear message: transgender people, especially transgender youth, do not have the right to exist, and we do not have the right to health care,” said Cervantes. “All this rhetoric that comes with these hostile policies is really damaging.”
OCAPNet and Pride at the Pier, another Orange County-based organization, held a rally outside the Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange at noon Saturday asking the hospital’s leadership to resist union pressure. TransFamily Support Services and the Alliance for TransYouth Rights also held a protest at 11 a.m. Saturday outside Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego.
“This is not going to end with transgender kids,” said Kanan Durham, director of Pride at the Pier. “The management is testing how easily they can force the hospital to betray its patients. They are using their power to tell us who can get care and who can’t.”
