The transgender patients and their families who are suing Children’s Hospital Colorado are seeking to hold the hospital in contempt for failing to resume gender-affirming care as ordered by the courts.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Children’s plausibly discriminated against transgender youth when it suspended gender-affirming care for those under 18. The hospital made the decision to suspend the care amid a series of threats by the Trump administration.
Following that Supreme Court decision, Denver District Judge Ericka Englert issued an injunction prohibiting the hospital “from refusing to provide medically necessary gender-affirming care to transgender patients pending resolution of this matter.” In practice, this means providing prescriptions for hormones and puberty-blockers to transgender patients. The hospital does not perform gender-affirming surgeries for patients of any age, and it has continued to provide mental health services to transgender patients.
Doctors balk at resuming care
In response to the injunction, Children’s updated its “scope of services” statement to say that it provides gender-affirming care. But the hospital’s doctors — who are employed by the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine and not Children’s — have refused to resume writing prescriptions related to gender-affirming care. The doctors say they are worried they could face sanction and possibly even criminal charges as the Trump administration continues its efforts to block care for transgender youth.
The hospital contends that it cannot override its doctors’ professional judgment. But, in a motion for contempt filed Friday, the plaintiffs argue that Children’s is using the distinction to dodge court orders.
“It has long been held that an owner/operator of a public accommodation cannot shield itself from discrimination laws by claiming it is not responsible for the discriminatory conduct of the people who work at its establishment,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys write in the motion.
As part of its motion, the plaintiffs included a letter — filed under seal — purportedly written by doctors at the hospital’s TRUE Center for Gender Diversity informing patients and their families that the doctors “will not be prescribing, refilling, or renewing gender-affirming prescriptions for patients under 18 years old.” According to the contempt motion, the letter asserted that the court’s injunction concerns “only the hospital’s scope of services.”
The letter was unsigned, and the plaintiffs’ attorneys say they have not been able to get Children’s to tell them who wrote it. They argue that the letter “is not based on a determination of what is or is not ‘medically necessary care’ but is, instead, merely a continuation of CHC’s policy of refusing to provide medical gender-affirming care to transgender adolescents.” (The attorneys use CHC throughout the motion to refer to Children’s Hospital Colorado.)
“This case arose because CHC forbade the medical providers from providing medically necessary gender-affirming care,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote in their motion. “Having already exercised control over the medical providers’ provision of care, CHC cannot disclaim its ability to control the same.”
In a statement to The Sun, Children’s said the doctors at the TRUE Center “have each independently decided, in consultation with outside legal counsel, not to prescribe or renew gender-affirming medications for minors at this time.”
“The motion before the court seeks to require Children’s Hospital Colorado to revoke medical staff membership from physicians who do not prescribe gender-affirming medications to patients under 18,” the hospital said in its statement. “We are deeply concerned that this path would ultimately harm the very patients this lawsuit claims to support.”
Children’s says the contempt motion would further restrict access to the gender-affirming services the hospital continues to provide — such as mental healthcare — and would harm the livelihoods of the TRUE Center doctors, whom the hospital called “clinical allies.”
“We know how greatly this affects patients and families, as many are navigating uncertainty, fear and frustration,” the hospital statement concluded. “The situation we are in is complex, with no easy answers.”
The plaintiffs are asking for a fine of $50,000 per day against the hospital until care is fully resumed. Englert, the judge, has set a hearing on July 20 to consider the motion.