Parents of four transgender children sued this week, alleging its decision to suspend gender-affirming care amounts to discrimination under state law.
Both Children’s and Denver Health stopped prescribing puberty blockers and hormonal treatment to patients under 18 in late December or early January. Neither hospital performed gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
Their decisions followed U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s that hospitals providing gender-affirming care to youth could be cut off from all Medicare and Medicaid payments.
The proposed rules to implement his declaration won’t take effect until at least February, assuming they survive legal challenges. Colorado and 19 other states have based on Kennedy’s declaration.
HHS officials also announced in late December that they would refer Children’s Hospital Colorado and Seattle Children’s Hospital to the department’s Office of the Inspector General for investigation of previous gender-affirming care. The inspector general typically investigates possible fraud involving Medicare or Medicaid, and the department hasn’t provided any information about which laws the hospitals might have broken.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Denver District Court, alleges Children’s doesn’t face an immediate loss of federal funding, and, even if it did, cutting off care to transgender and nonbinary children constitutes discrimination under Colorado law.
The lists gender identity as a protected characteristic, alongside race, sex, disability, religion and other traits that businesses serving the public can’t use to treat someone unfavorably.
The lawsuit alleged that Children’s was discriminating based not only on gender identity, but on sex and disability, because the plaintiffs’ kids have gender dysphoria — distress when one’s sense of self and sex characteristics don’t align.
“No reputable medical provider would justify refusing care to patients because of their religion, color of their skin or any other protected category — but the hospital’s administration is doing exactly that because the transgender community is villainized and denigrated by the current presidential administration,” the lawsuit said.
Children’s responded in a statement that the decision to suspend medication therapy for gender-affirming care was legal, and avoided the loss of federal funding that would jeopardize all types of care. The hospital is working to support transgender patients’ mental health while waiting for legal clarity, it said.
“It is unfortunate that this lawsuit targets Children’s Colorado rather than the federal mandates,” the statement said.
Mainstream medical groups support puberty blockers and hormonal treatment for children who are consistent in their transgender identity and distressed by the prospect of unmedicated puberty.
The plaintiffs, who used pseudonyms, asked the court for permission to file on behalf of all children who had lost gender-affirming care at the hospital’s TRUE Center for Gender Diversity, known as a class action. The lawsuit estimated the center had about 800 patients as of January 2025, but didn’t specify how many were under 18 and receiving medication.
All four plaintiffs were parents of transgender girls, ranging from 9 to 17. The oldest had started hormonal treatment, two younger teens were taking puberty blockers and the youngest child only received regular checks for the onset of puberty, so she could start blockers before developing male characteristics.
The parents described their children as consistently asserting themselves as female and experiencing distress at the idea of developing male sex characteristics.
Both Children’s and Denver Health earlier last year had announced they would pause gender-affirming care involving medications, but resumed such treatment a few weeks later after a court injunction prevented the administration from withholding federal funding.
