More than 100 people marched through Emeryville to Sutter Health’s headquarters on Monday to protest the company’s decision to stop treating some of its trans patients.
“I am not a political pawn, I am a teenager who wants to grow up in a body that feels like his.”
That’s Eric, a trans teenager who lives in the East Bay. He and his parents are part of Rainbow Families Action, a Bay Area collective of parents with trans kids that helped organize Monday’s rally. To protect Eric’s safety, we aren’t going to use his last name.
“Trans people are not the only group that receives gender affirming care. In fact, we are not even the majority. Cisgender boys receive top surgery for gynecomastia far more often than trans boys and plenty cisgender girls will get breast implants, or other cosmetic surgeries. All of that is recognized as legitimate, but as soon as the word transgender is mentioned, people see it as an open invitation to debate. Trans kids deserve the same respect and freedom that is given to our cis counterparts when it comes to healthcare.”
Sutter Health has 3.5 million patients in California, it’s considered a non-profit healthcare provider, and accepts medi-cal.
Last month, on Trans Day of Remembrance, the company quietly contacted the parents and caregivers of its transgender patients, and told them that, starting December 10th, they would no longer be providing gender affirming care to patients younger than 19. That means it will stop providing hormone replacement therapy, puberty blockers, and other gender affirming treatments. The timing couldn’t have been worse.
“It was right after open enrollment for healthcare closed, so they were potentially taking healthcare away from families and not even giving them an opportunity to seek that same care elsewhere. It was also right before the Thanksgiving break and you know, families were left scrambling.”
That’s Calder Storm. He’s a transgender man, the parent of two trans children, and an organizer with Rainbow Families Action.
Sutter’s decision makes it the third of five Bay Area healthcare provider to rescind some type of care for trans patients younger than 19. Earlier this year, Kaiser Permanente and Stanford Medicine both announced that they were going to stop providing gender affirming surgeries for patients under 19. Again, here’s Storm.
“And of course, Stanford famously included puberty blocker implants in that list of services they will no longer offer to patients under 19.”
Rescinding gender-affirming care can have devastating effects on a patient's physical and mental health. Rates of suicidal ideation, and attempts at suicide are significantly higher in trans kids than in their cisgender peers.
In a statement, Sutter Health told KALW:
“Like other health systems locally and across the country, we are working to ensure compliance with recent federal actions and other developments affecting the provision of gender-affirming care only for patients under 19. We remain committed to approaching this with compassion, physician guidance, and compliance with applicable requirements.”
But the legality of the decision is questionable. California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act makes it illegal for a business, including a hospital, to discriminate against an individual because of their gender identity. And although the hospitals say they are following federal guidelines, those guidelines are currently being challenged in court.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the Trump administration in August over its executive order on gender-affirming care. And in November, Bonta affirmed that California protects healthcare providers with transgender patients, and that it prohibits insurers from denying coverage. But as far as patients and their caregivers can tell, Sutter is standing by its decision. Bonta’s office says they are "deeply concerned" by Sutter's decision.
