HomeCrimeColorado hospital sued for canceling transgender surgery

Colorado hospital sued for canceling transgender surgery

Children’s Hospital of Colorado (screengrab via KUSA).

A college-bound transgender student sued a Colorado children’s hospital Wednesday for discriminating against him by suddenly and without warning canceling his gender-affirming surgery, leaving him no choice but to pay out of pocket for the procedure in order to complete it by the time he begins college. The case is the latest legal battle involving Colorado’s anti-discrimination law, the same statute at issue in the Masterpiece Cake Shop cases and in the case of a website designer who didn’t want to make websites for gay people getting married.

The student, who is proceeding in the lawsuit under the pseudonym Caden Kent, is an 18-year-old transgender man who lives in Denver, Colorado. In the lawsuit, Kent is represented by the ACLU of Colorado. Kent began receiving care for gender dysphoria in 2021 at age 16. In 2023, Kent’s doctors determined that chest masculinization surgery was medically necessary for his treatment and that he was a good candidate for the procedure. He sought care from Children’s Hospital of Colorado (CHCO).

Kent began discussing chest masculinization surgery with CHCO in Dec. 2022. At the time, Kent was under age 18. Over the next six months, Kent and his family continued planning for the surgery; they met with various members of the medical team, started the process of submitting documentation for insurance coverage. On July 13, 2023, Kent’s family received an insurance authorization letter in the mail, and the next day, Kent’s father informed the hospital that they were ready to schedule the surgery.

However, July 13, 2023 was also the day that CHCO decided it would no longer perform surgeries to treat gender dysphoria.

CHCO typically provides medical care to children under age 18, but also provides care to adults when the hospital’s pediatric expertise is medically important to the needs of the adult patient or when the patient has a history of treatment with the facility as a minor. In most cases, the hospital encourages patients to move to adult care by age 22, but occasionally recommends continuing care at CHCO when the patient, their family, and their health care team deem it the most appropriate option to create an uninterrupted continuum of care.

The hospital has never performed gender-affirming surgeries for pediatric patients, but sometimes performed the surgeries for transgender adult patients. According to the complaint, “CHCO would provide these procedures to transgender patients over the age of 18 if they began their course of treatment and surgery planning with CHCO before turning 18.”

CHCO had been one of only three institutions in Colorado that provided these surgeries and accepted insurance.

According to the lawsuit, the hospital, without explanation or notice, canceled all surgeries scheduled to treat gender dysphoria, including those that were scheduled as soon as the next day. This “abrupt policy reversal” conflicted with the hospital’s own standard of care, said the plaintiffs.

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