"A new lawsuit accuses Penn State Health of violating a Pennsylvanian’s civil rights when a hospital “abruptly” canceled a gender-affirming procedure less than 24 hours before it was scheduled. Doctors for EJ Stiles, who is nonbinary and has a gender dysphoria diagnosis, recommended a mastectomy “to align their outward presentation with their gender identity,” according to the filing. The lawsuit states that administrators at Penn State Health St. Joseph Medical Center in Reading, Berks County, claimed such a procedure would violate Catholic doctrine.
“I did everything right. I followed my doctors’ advice and trusted Penn State Health after they made me feel there was a place for patients like me. But being denied care so suddenly, simply because of who I am, was a devastating eye-opener,” Stiles said in a press release. “If an institution’s biases can so easily lock transgender and nonbinary patients out of care, then our health care system is operating with holes that need to be addressed. We all deserve equal access to health care, and to be served by institutions that honor their responsibility to treat us with dignity,” they continued."
ACLU sues Penn State Health over canceled gender-affirming care procedure
"Children’s Hospital Colorado on Monday pleaded not guilty to allegations it has violated a court order to resume gender-affirming care for transgender youth. The plea came during a brief hearing in Denver District Court, during which Judge Ericka F. H. Englert scheduled a multiday trial in mid-September to determine whether Children’s should be held in contempt.
Children’s is being sued by four transgender youth and their families who say the hospital discriminated against them when it stopped writing prescriptions to patients under the age of 18 for the purposes of gender-affirming care. The hospital has continued to offer mental health support to trans youth. It has never performed gender-affirming surgeries for those under 18. It’s been more than seven months since Children’s stopped providing the prescriptions for hormones or puberty blockers. Without them, the families say their children will suffer irreparable harm from bodily changes that are inconsistent with their gender identity. Children’s stopped the care for trans youth after a series of threats by the federal government to punish hospitals and doctors who provide the care. The hospital argues that resuming the prescriptions could cause a cascade of federal sanctions that, in the extreme, would force the hospital to close.
Earlier this year, a divided Colorado Supreme Court
ruled there is enough evidence that Children’s had violated a state antidiscrimination law for an injunction to be issued against the hospital. The injunction, which Englert subsequently entered, prohibits the hospital from “refusing to provide medically necessary gender-affirming care to transgender patients pending resolution of this matter.”
Children’s Hospital Colorado pleads not guilty to contempt allegation in gender-affirming care lawsuit