Behold, the unending cowardice of cisgender healthcare providers.
You may recall that barely a month ago, I reported on Children’s Hospital Colorado, once the state’s largest provider of gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth. In January, they stopped providing necessary, life-saving, widely accepted healthcare for trans kids over threats made by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Trans kids, deprived of the safe and effective medical treatments that help them to live happy, normal lives, sued Children’s Colorado. The hospital’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. David Brumbaugh, argued in court that treating trans kids meant risking the hospital’s federal funding, without which they would be unable to treat any kids. Dr. Brumbaugh lamented the federal government’s intrusion into medical decision-making, and expressed his sincere hope that one day doctors at Children’s Colorado would be able to “resume a medical gender-affirming model of care.”
Lo and behold, Dr. Brumbaugh’s wish was granted! Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled that the hospital must resume providing gender-affirming care to trans kids. Justice William Hood said, in a 30-page opinion, “Because any potential harm to the public’s interest in access to healthcare is speculative, and because the General Assembly has stated that it is in the public’s interest to prohibit discrimination against individuals based on gender identity and to protect those individuals’ access to medical care, we conclude that the trial court erred by finding that petitioners failed to satisfy the public interest factor.”
Hooray! The day is saved! Now the brave doctors at Children’s Colorado can get back to helping trans kids, just like they wanted. Everybody wins!
Sorry, I’m touching my ear to suggest I’m receiving a live news update as we speak. That’s right, folks, I’m learning just now that the spineless cretins at Children’s Colorado are refusing to provide care to trans kids in spite of a court order requiring them to do so. That’s right, in a statement emailed to The Colorado Sun, the hospital announced that they had reinstated gender-affirming care as part of the services they offer, but added that every member of their TRUE Center for Gender Diversity independently decided that they would not provide any treatment to trans youth under 18 after seeking legal counsel on the matter.
“We recognize that these changes have been challenging for patients, families and team members, and we empathize with their experience,” Children’s Colorado lied ghoulishly. We know this is a lie, of course, because empathy requires a human soul. Because these losers have no spines, we can safely assume they are not human beings, and thus possess no souls. Quod erat demonstrandum, baby.
Paula Greisen, the attorney representing the four trans kids who sued Children’s Colorado, said in an email to the Sun, “Instead of complying with the court order, Children’s Hospital is now claiming that it is not responsible for whether its medical staff discriminates against children based on sex, gender identity, race, religion, or any other protected category. That is false. Children’s Board of Directors implemented a policy telling its staff to stop providing gender-affirming care, and they did as they were told. Now the Hospital is throwing the providers ‘under the bus’ and claiming that the doctors are refusing to comply with the law.”
I share Paula’s outrage. This display of rank cowardice from Children’s Colorado is reprehensible. That said, it isn’t the only chicanery they’ve been up to of late: Early this month, after the Colorado Supreme Court kicked their case back to a lower court where injunctive relief forcing the hospital to resume care was to be issued, Children’s Colorado requested, I swear to you, that the plaintiffs’ families be forced to pay $250,000 bond to cover the hospital’s legal risk in treating their kids.
Children’s Colorado claimed that the injunctive relief “threatens Children’s Hospital Colorado with the loss of tens of millions of dollars in funding and legal expenses,” justifying their ask of a quarter mil from trans kids’ families, and added rather stupidly that the $250,000 bond request “in no way penalizes any person seeking care at Children’s Colorado.”
It’s like they were trying to piss me off.
Paula Greisen requested instead that the court set bond at $1, a nominal fee typical in discrimination cases, and Judge Ericka F.E. Englert obliged.
Now, we appear to be at a standstill. Children’s Colorado believes it has satisfied the requirements of the court order by offering gender-affirming care for minors once more, knowing full well that their staff will not actually administer that care. In my limited experience with the American legal system, I can tell you that judges absolutely love it when you interpret court orders creatively to sidestep the spirit of the law, so I assume this will ultimately go well for them.
In case you aren’t aware, there is no legal justification for Children’s suspension of services; to date, federal policy on trans healthcare has been issued only in the form of Executive Orders and memos from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., neither of which are explicitly legally binding. In fact, in March, a federal judge told Kennedy in no uncertain terms that he does not have the authority to unilaterally ban trans youth healthcare nationwide.
Children’s Colorado and their doctors are not afraid of the law, they are afraid of lawsuits. They fear that the Justice Department will bombard them with civil litigation that forces them to settle out of court. In Texas, Children’s Hospital has been forced to pay out more than $10 million in damages and civil penalties, establish a “detransition clinic,” and revoke the medical privileges of five physicians.
I believe they’re right to be afraid. It seems likely to me that, sooner or later, this administration will come for Children’s Colorado, should they actually provide gender-affirming healthcare to trans kids. It’s possible, even, that the hospital will lose a tremendous amount of money and physicians who provide care to trans kids will have their careers ruined.
However, I know—and they do, too—that the right thing to do is provide that treatment anyway. The bold, courageous move is to show some backbone and stand up to people like Donald Trump and RFK, Jr., and tell them in no uncertain terms that you will render aid to the marginalized, vulnerable patients who need your help, and to hell with anybody who tries to stand in your way.
Remember: First, do no harm.
Aly Gibbs (She/They) is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
