On a sweltering August afternoon in Los Angeles, a small but determined crowd gathered outside Kaiser Permanente’s medical center, waving signs and chanting, “trans lives matter.” Their protest came in direct response to a seismic shift in the landscape of transgender rights and healthcare for young people across the United States. Kaiser Permanente, the state’s largest health care provider, announced it would halt gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19 starting August 29, 2025—a move that has reverberated through California and beyond, igniting fierce debate and legal battles.
This decision by Kaiser followed mounting federal pressure, including executive orders from President Donald Trump, who earlier this year signed sweeping directives to ban gender-affirming care for minors nationwide. According to the Los Angeles Daily News, Trump’s order characterized such care as “chemical and surgical mutilation” and insisted that restricting it was necessary to protect children. He declared, “This dangerous trend will be a stain on our nation’s history, and it must end.” These actions have not only influenced policy at the federal level but have also sent shockwaves through states like California, where robust legal protections for transgender people have historically shielded them from such prohibitions.
Despite California’s laws that prohibit the denial of services to transgender individuals, the threat of losing crucial federal funding has forced even major providers to reconsider their positions. Kaiser’s announcement came on the heels of similar closures at Stanford Medicine and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which shuttered its trans youth clinic in July. In total, at least eight major hospitals in states where gender-affirming care remains legal have announced restrictions or outright terminations of care for patients under 19, reported the Pasadena Star-News.
Kaiser Permanente, which serves roughly one in four Californians and 4.9 million patients in Southern California, operates 16 hospitals and nearly 200 medical offices. In a statement released July 31, the health network cited “ongoing pressures hospitals face regarding health care, since Trump took office in January,” including federal investigations, regulatory changes, and explicit threats to funding. The statement read, “This has included executive orders instructing federal agencies to take actions to curtail access and restrict funding for gender-affirming care, hospital inquiries by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and broader federal agency review, including by the Federal Trade Commission.”
While the pause on surgeries will begin August 29, Kaiser emphasized that other forms of gender-affirming care—such as hormone therapy, counseling, and mental health resources—will remain available. “We remain a voice and advocate for safe, high-quality, and evidence-based care for transgender patients,” Kaiser officials stated.
For many in the transgender community and their allies, the halt is a devastating blow. Diego Vasquez, who began receiving gender-affirming care at age 22, told the Daily News, “If I had this when I was younger, I might have had a better shot at life.” Vasquez believes such care “gives youth the will to live.” Others, like Jessica Marchesi, a 63-year-old transgender woman who accessed care through Kaiser in San Francisco, voiced anger that today’s youth are being denied services that could have transformed their lives. “If this had been an option for me when I was younger, my life would have been entirely different,” Marchesi said.
Not everyone shares these sentiments. Erin Friday, president of the group Our Duty-USA, which opposes gender-affirming care for minors, celebrated the closures and encouraged continued activism to “kill the whole of gender ideology.” She wrote on social media, “No one is safe until the media, doctors, therapists, teachers, institutions and the Democrats admit that no one can change sex. Gender identity is a make-believe ‘BS’ concept.” Religious organizations and other parent groups have also voiced strong objections, calling such medical interventions immoral and dangerous for children.
The debate isn’t confined to California. Earlier this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors, a decision that advocates say is a major setback for transgender rights. At least 25 states now have similar laws on the books. In response, California Attorney General Ron Bonta, along with attorneys general from 15 other states and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing it of unlawfully intimidating providers into halting care for trans youth.
Research from the Williams Institute at UCLA underscores the stakes: bans on gender-affirming care are linked to increased risks of anxiety, depression, and suicide among transgender youth. Elana Redfield, the institute’s Federal Policy Director, told the Daily News, “The denial of basic humanity that comes with being told by an office as powerful as the President of the United States that your life doesn’t matter… puts a lot of stress on youth and families seeking to live better, happier, healthier lives.” Redfield called the federal campaign to restrict care “unscientific, overly ambitious, and cruel.”
Meanwhile, the controversy is spilling over into the world of sports. In Pennsylvania, long-distance runner Evie Parts filed suit against the NCAA and Swarthmore College after she was removed from her track team following the NCAA’s new policy banning transgender athletes in women’s sports. Parts’ lawsuit argues that because the NCAA is a private organization, its policy has no legal standing under Pennsylvania law or Title IX. According to the Associated Press, Parts was told she could only compete on the men’s team or as an unattached athlete, with limited access to medical care if she chose the former. She was barred from team travel, coaching, and even wearing the school’s uniform.
The lawsuit alleges that this treatment pushed Parts into a “depressive state” that led to self-harm and thoughts of suicide. Her attorney, Susie Cirilli, said, “As stated in the complaint, the NCAA is a private organization that issued a bigoted policy. Swarthmore College chose to follow that policy and disregard federal and state law.” Swarthmore College and the NCAA declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.
Parts was eventually reinstated to the women’s team in April and competed until her graduation in May, even winning the 10,000 meters at the Bill Butler Invitational. Yet, her case is emblematic of the broader conflict over transgender participation in sports—a conflict that has only intensified since President Trump’s executive order and the NCAA’s subsequent policy change. Pennsylvania’s state Senate recently passed a bill banning transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports, but it is unlikely to advance in the state’s Democratic-controlled House.
As the legal and political battles rage on, the human cost is becoming increasingly clear. Transgender youth and their families are left scrambling for care, sometimes traveling across state lines to find providers willing to help. Health care professionals, caught between state protections and federal threats, must navigate an ever-shifting landscape that places vulnerable patients in jeopardy. For many, the struggle is about more than policy or politics—it’s about the right to live authentically, safely, and with dignity in a country still deeply divided over what that means.
