California judge orders Rady Children’s Hospital to provide child sex changes after doctors stop practice

A judge with the San Diego County Superior Court has ruled that Rady Children’s Hospital must continue offering so-called “gender affirming care” to minors, even after the hospital announced it would stop providing such services.

Judge Matthew Braner ruled last week that the hospital must continue to offer transgender procedures, including things such as puberty-blockers and other hormone treatments, to patients under 19. The hospital had previously announced in January that it would stop offering the procedures. This prompted the California Attorney General’s Office to sue, arguing that ending these procedures violated state law.

“Rady Children’s Health has chosen to violate its merger agreement and California law in response to the Trump Administration’s illegal campaign against providers of gender-affirming care,” said Attorney General Bonta at the time. “Rady flagrantly disregarded its legal obligations by unilaterally deciding to preemptively comply with the Administration’s demands and cease medically necessary care for roughly 1,450 patients. We will not allow Rady to violate its obligations to its patients and the State. We will fight to uphold the law and ensure Californians can access gender-affirming care without facing unfair roadblocks.”

Attorneys for Rady argued the hospital would be at “catastrophic risk” of losing federal funding should it continue these procedures because it would be at odds with a December declaration from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The declaration stated that so-called “gender affirming care” for minors does not meet “professionally recognized standards of health care.”

Braner said he was not convinced the hospital faced an immediate risk of losing federal funding, despite the Trump administration’s crackdown on providers offering such procedures to minors.

Brander said, per the New York Post, “Right at this moment, I see kids at risk suffering relative degrees of harm. Whereas at the moment, I see the existential threat to Rady of losing funding that would affect 800,000 patients is just that: a threat. It’s a threat that might become a reality, but it is not yet at that stage.”