California Attorney General Rob Bonta has joined with other Democratic state attorneys general to threaten hospitals with potential state action if they abide by President Donald Trump's directive to cease performing gender transitioning surgeries and drug therapies on children.
On Feb. 5, Bonta issued a statement in which he "reminded California hospitals and federally-funded healthcare providers of their ongoing obligation under California anti-discrimination law to provide" such gender transition procedures.
The broader statement was issued at the same time Bonta sent a letter directly to Children's Hospital Los Angeles, threatening them with a state regulatory lawsuit for reportedly complying with Trump's directives and suspending so-called "gender affirming care."
"Electing to refuse services to a class of individuals based on their protected status, such as withholding services from transgender individuals based on their gender identity or their diagnosis of gender dysphoria, while offering such services to cisgender individuals, is discrimination," Bonta wrote in the letter to Children's Hospital Los Angeles. "California families seeking gender affirming care, and the doctors and staff who provide it, are protected under state laws. The Office of the Attorney General will continue to defend California law."
The threats from Bonta and his colleagues in other states dominated by Democrats could place hospitals in a precarious legal and financial position, as they jeopardizing federal funding or risk regulatory action from the federal government, should they continue to perform breast and genital removals, hormonal therapies and other gender transitioning procedures on children, or risk facing legal attacks from their state government, should they comply with federal orders and cease.
In late January, President Trump issued an executive order titled "Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation."
"Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end," the order signed by Trump stated.
"Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding. Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization."
Under the order, Trump declared it would be the policy of the U.S. government under his administration "that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called 'transition' of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures" for people under the age of 19 years old.
The order includes directives to the Department of Health and Human Services to reject so-called "junk science" directed by transgender advocates, particularly through the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which the order states "lacks scientific integrity."
The order directs HHS to instead "increase the quality of data to guide practices for improving the health of minors with gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion, or who otherwise seek chemical or surgical mutilation."
The order, however, notably directs HHS to "take all appropriate actions to end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children." The steps include freezing federal funds to hospitals and other clinical settings that continue to provide "chemical and surgical mutilation of children," should they continue with such procedures.
And the order directed the U.S. Justice Department to also "investigate and take appropriate action" to protect minors against "female genital mutilation," as forbidden by law.
Trump's order has been challenged in court directly by transgender activists and parents who argue the order violates their rights to move forward with the otherwise blocked gender transition procedures on their children.
Bonta has joined with 21 other state attorneys general to also sue to block the Trump administration from blocking federal funds to hospitals and other organizations, more generally.
While those legal actions continue, hospitals in California and elsewhere in the U.S. have reportedly begun cancelling surgeries and other appointments for such gender transition procedures for children or have reportedly suspended their child gender transition programs.
Bonta, however, has asserted hospitals should continue performing such procedures on children, because "the recent Executive Order pertaining to gender-affirming care for minors does not provide federal agencies with any basis to threaten or revoke your federal funding."
He further indicated his office was prepared to take legal action against any hospitals who abide by the Trump order.
The growing conflict between Democrats in California, together with other states with governments led by Democrats, against the Trump administration over the issue of child gender transition procedures comes at the same time hospitals are increasingly being sued for providing the procedures.
Medical system Kaiser Permanente, for instance, has been sued by a woman who claims she was pressured by medical professionals at Kaiser to undergo extensive gender transition surgeries and hormone therapies while a teenager, and was never informed of the option of psychiatric care or other non-surgical and non-hormonal therapies to "treat the underlying psychological conditions" which landed her in Kaiser's care to begin with.
In the lawsuit filed in 2023, plaintiff Chloe Cole said she was led to believe she would commit suicide unless she underwent "harmful transgender treatment, specifically, off-label puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatment, and a double mastectomy" to remove her otherwise healthy breasts.
In the action, Cole said those procedures have left her with "excruciating pain" and "regret," particularly regarding her inability to become pregnant or breastfeed a child.
Cole is seeking potentially massive punitive damages against Kaiser.