(The Center Square) – The nation’s largest nurses’ union is blasting Kaiser Permanente for pausing gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19 starting next month, due to pending litigation and pressure from the Trump administration.
“As the legal and regulatory environment for gender-affirming care continues to evolve, we must carefully consider the significant risks being created for health systems, clinicians, and patients under the age of 19 seeking this care,” Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente said in a statement emailed to The Center Square.
Kaiser, which operates hospitals across the northwest – including in Kent, Federal Way and Auburn – said it will pause the surgeries starting Aug. 29 but will continue to provide other gender-affirming treatments.
Gender-affirming treatments include puberty-blocking drugs and hormone therapy, often provided to patients prior to any surgical procedure.
“We continue to meet with regulators as well as our clinicians, patients, their families, and the community with the goal of identifying a responsible path forward. We recognize that this is an extremely challenging and stressful time for our patients seeking care, as well as for our clinicians whose mission is to care for them. We will work closely with each patient to support their care journey,” Kaiser’s statement said.
National Nurses United, the largest nursing union in the United States, issued a statement “shaming” Kaiser over the decision.
“This is pre-emptively giving in to government overreach in health care,” Lady Rainsard, a registered nurse in plastic surgery at Kaiser San Francisco, said in the news release. “Medical providers, not politicians, know what’s best for our patients. Gender-affirming care is safe and effective. As nurses, we always follow the precautionary principle, and we always advocate for our patients. Right now, we deem it a much greater risk to cave to this kind of government overreach than it is to provide this care to our patients, no matter their age.”
Danni Askini, executive director of the Seattle office of the Gender Justice League, told The Center Square Kaiser’ policy change is a “betrayal for both transgender people and LGBT people.”
“It’s capitulating in advance, and Kaiser has, in particular, really worked to try and frame themselves as a progressive health organization that follows science-based decision making, and this decision to halt care is discriminatory, but also incredibly unscientific and not based on sound medical research. It’s a political decision that we disagree with.”
According to Askini, the Gender Justice League has worked with over 190 families and young people in the last year.
“What we hear is a sense of panic and alarm, of terror, that they are being targeted specifically by this administration and policymakers around the country for differential treatment,” Askini said. “There are millions and millions of Americans who would understand how terrifying that is for the government to have that power over people’s lives and their agency and decision-making.”
Critics pushing to ban transgender surgeries on young people argue that minors aren’t mature enough to consent to receiving life-altering care.
Chloe Cole is suing Kaiser Permanente for puberty blockers and surgical procedures during her teen years.
Cole is a biological female who, according to her attorneys at Dhillon Law Group, “suffered from a perceived psychological issue, ‘gender dysphoria,’ beginning at 9 years old. Under Defendants’ advice and supervision, between 13-17 years old, Chloe underwent harmful transgender treatment, specifically, off-label puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatment, and a double mastectomy.”
The Trump administration has taken a series of steps to limit gender-affirming care for minors. In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order restricting federal funding for gender-affirming medical treatments for patients under 19, and the administration has threatened to cancel federal grants from hospitals and medical schools that continue to provide gender treatments for minors.
The Center Square contacted Elizabeth New, director of the Washington Policy Center’s Health Care Center, for comment on Kaiser’s policy change.
“Federal funding is essential for providers, and I’m encouraged to see stronger safeguards for minors when it comes to irreversible, life-altering surgeries. Young people deserve time to move through puberty, to process identity and to grow into themselves before making permanent medical decisions,” New said in an email, noting a February news article about Seattle Children’s Hospital abruptly canceling a teen’s gender surgery after Trump’s executive order that threatened federal funding.
Seattle Children’s has not officially changed its adolescent gender care policy; it encourages adolescents to seek counsel on their own if they desire.
“Parents and caregivers are very important for ensuring the growth and development of adolescents into healthy adults … as providers, we are also dedicated to helping adolescents and young adults develop independence and practice being involved in medical decisions,” Seattle Children’s Gender Clinic website states. “As recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, we offer time in the Adolescent Medicine Clinic to talk with your provider alone.”
New isn’t so sure.
“The current approach to youth gender dysphoria has outpaced the available evidence,” she said. “Treatment should be multidisciplinary and grounded in science, not ideology. A more cautious, holistic and individualized path is not only prudent [but] necessary.”
