About two dozen people gathered for what they called an “emergency rally” at Children’s Hospital Colorado on Thursday. On a cold day under the midday sun, they protested the hospital’s changes to policies for gender-affirming care, which came after pressure from the new federal administration.
A federal judge later in the day blocked executive orders signed by President Donald Trump regarding transgender people and their health care.
“Children's Hospital, we believe, has been reactive to the Trump administration's executive orders and set sort of an arbitrary end to youth health care,” said Z Williams, an advocate for the trans community. They said they co-direct Bread and Roses Legal Center in Colorado.
“We need Children's to refuse to comply with this arbitrary executive order that's really unenforceable,” Williams said, citing a statement from Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.
“The Trump administration’s recent executive order is wrong on the science and the law,” Weiser wrote in a statement last week. “No federal law makes gender-affirming care unlawful. President Trump cannot change that by executive order.
Not only did the hospital set that arbitrary end, but they gave many families less than two business weeks to get insurance approvals for procedures, Williams said, which can require time to get those appointments made and to get that approval.
Some families that did get approval now are running out of medications. That means people who have gone through the processes leading up to gender-affirming care are now facing potentially not even getting the procedures that were promised to them initially.
“I think that preemptive compliance is dangerous, especially for trans youth. We need to understand that the care that we're talking about is lifesaving care. It is suicide prevention,” said Williams. “It increases a child's likelihood to succeed in so many health markers, even beyond mental health. And so if Children's Hospital wants to fulfill its mission, then they need to be returning this care and pushing back this deadline so that people can get in and get what they need.”
Children’s Colorado “can push back this deadline, that the community that they alleged to serve is really insisting that that deadline be pushed back and that they have the protections,” Williams said.
The judge’s ruling in the federal court case ordered the administration to keep funding in place for hospitals offering gender-transition treatments for those younger than 19.
“Children’s Hospital Colorado is aware that a federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order blocking aspects of the executive order related to gender-affirming care,” a spokeswoman said in a statement via email. “We will carefully evaluate the judge's order once it is available in writing and determine its impact upon our model of care.”
The policy change at Children’s Hospital Colorado followed similar changes announced earlier this month by Denver Health and UCHealth. In response to the White House order, both said they were raising the minimum age to get gender-affirming care to 19.
A Denver Health spokesperson said the hospital is evaluating the potential impacts of the federal judge’s temporary restraining order.
A spokesperson from UCHealth said they too are evaluating the ruling. She said its teams “have already been working closely with our 18-year-old patients who were impacted by the change. She noted UCHealth only provided gender-affirming care to patients 18 and older, “so it’s likely fewer patients were impacted in our system than others.”
Moms speak out
Several of the people who attended the rally were parents of children who’d either already made a gender transition or who were in the process.
“Every single clinician that we've ever worked with is grieving just like I am,” said Shannon, a mother who didn’t want to give her last name out of safety concerns. She said her child, who identifies as male, has been getting puberty blockers.
She said she understood the bind the executive order put leadership at Colorado hospitals in.
“I understand they receive a huge portion of their budget from federal funding. I understand the reality of that,” she said, adding that she’d be scrambling and dealing with her insurance company for the last couple of weeks to keep her child’s treatment flowing.
“I understand they have to comply. I don't want Children's or Denver Health to close because of funding and it just wasn't enough time,” she said.
She said her child was getting treatment at Denver Health, but was referred to Children’s Hospital for an implant of the medication, which she described as a bridge before he can start hormone replacement therapy.
When asked if her child could wait until after he turns 19 to get gender-affirming treatment, she said, no.
“I painted his room pink. I bought him all the dresses, and from the moment he could tell me, ‘I don't want to wear that, and I want a boy haircut,’ ” she said. “I saw him see himself and be himself. And I don't know any parent that would deny that.”
Another mother, Susan Ladley, a physician who is from Denver, said her child, who is 18 and also identifies as male, had been getting care at Denver Health, including hormonal treatment.
“We were made aware after a very recent executive order that the gender-affirming care could no longer be provided. And so we are currently out of options,” Ladley said. “He's going to age out, he will be 19. However, we fear in this current political climate that gender-affirming care in general will be restricted.”
She said she understood the pressure hospitals are under and knows that hospital leaders and providers are “heartbroken” to have to alter care and “feel trapped” by what they see as an explicit threat to their federal funding.
Still, she said she worried about the impact on society when groups and individuals get singled out.
“I think that there should be political resistance like this on a small scale, but by the hospital entities on a larger scale,” Ladley said. “I think everyone's reeling and complying ahead of time, understandably. These are scary times, but trans people are a targeted group for hate.”
Executive order prompted changes
Last week, Children’s Hospital Colorado said in a statement it “must modify our model of care for providing puberty blockers and other hormone-based gender-affirming care treatments.”
The move was prompted by an executive order signed by President Donald Trump aimed at halting gender-affirming medical treatments for children and teenagers under the age of 19.
The order stated the United States “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.”
In a statement last week, the hospital cited the executive order, saying it would still provide other types of care to patients. It said the order “threatens Children’s Hospital Colorado’s ability to receive federal health care funds” that support the care of hundreds of thousands of patients.
It said it will continue to provide behavioral and supportive care for patients once approved prescriptions for current patients expire.
Children’s Hospital Colorado said it never provided gender-affirming surgical care for patients under the age of 18, according to last week’s statement.
It said it would continue to assess the rapidly changing health landscape. “We care deeply about our gender-diverse patients and their families, and we will carefully and responsibly support them as we evolve the model of care we offer,” the statement said.
