Tacoma's Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital to close gender clinic

Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital plans to shut down its gender care clinic this week, citing mounting federal pressure that hospital leaders say could jeopardize critical Medicaid and Medicare funding for its parent organization, MultiCare Health System.

In a memo sent to employees on Monday, obtained by The Seattle Times, MultiCare CEO Bill Robertson said “recent developments at the federal level” have raised the risk that the federal government could cut off payments to the entire health system if Mary Bridge continues providing gender-altering services to minors. “This was an incredibly painful decision, and one that I wish we did not have to make,” Robertson wrote. “We recognize how important this care is to our gender health clinic patients and have a sense of the impact this will have on these patients and their families.”

Robertson warned that losing federal reimbursement would threaten the health system’s survival. “Without federal Medicaid and Medicare payments,” he wrote, “our organization would cease to exist.” Hospital officials say more than 60 percent of Mary Bridge patients rely on Medicaid, known as Apple Health in Washington. The Mary Bridge Gender Care Clinic has provided gender-altering services since 2015. Though the clinic doesn’t perform surgeries, it does offer puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Over half the states in the US have enacted restrictions on the controversial procedures for minors.

In September, the hospital cut its waitlist of approximately 150 families, confirming it would continue treating patients already receiving medication but would not start new medical treatment for additional patients. “We only made this decision after extremely careful consideration of all our options,” Robertson wrote, adding that MultiCare had held discussions with local leaders, including members of the LGBTQ+ community, about how to implement the changes and support affected families. The hospital has also removed much of the clinic’s online information about gender-altering procedures.

In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at restricting the controversial procedures. In April, Attorney General Pam Bondi warned that physicians could face felony charges for providing the procedures to minors. State Attorney General Nick Brown’s office filed a lawsuit challenging the executive order, arguing it unlawfully seeks to halt federal funding tied to pediatric gender-affirming care. A federal judge in Seattle later found the order discriminatory and issued a preliminary injunction blocking it while the case proceeds.

Brown is also co-leading a separate lawsuit over proposed federal rules from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, alleging the federal government is attempting to coerce providers into stopping gender-altering procedures for youth and bypassing required legal processes for policy changes.