Children's Hospital Los Angeles Ends Transgender Care

Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, July 23, 2025…

• For the past 30 years, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has provided gender-affirming care to trans children and young adults. But for nearly 3,000 patients, that ended this week, under pressure from the Trump administration.
• Immigrants in Los Angeles have been losing income because of federal immigration raids. Cities want to help, but they’ve been dealing with budget cuts.
•  California Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the state, lost its federal funding this week under a court order that allows that money to be withheld, while a larger legal dispute plays out.

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Closes Transyouth Center

Sage Sol Pitchenik was scrolling through Substack on June 12 when they were startled by a post that said Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) was ending gender-affirming care on July 22. They had received that kind of care for the past six years. The 16-year-old patient called their dad, and he confirmed it. “I started crying,” said Pitchenik.

CHLA’s Center for Transyouth Health and Development has provided essential treatments to thousands of trans children and young adults for over 30 years, making it one of the oldest and largest programs in the country. Now, nearly 3,000 patients there will need to find new medical providers. CHLA’s decision follows an executive order signed by President Trump in January that threatened to cut funding for hospitals that help patients under age 19 medically transition. CHLA receives two-thirds of its funding from federal sources, and said in a statement that federal agencies have already terminated some of its grants. “Despite [a] deeply held commitment to supporting LA’s gender-diverse community, the hospital has been left with no viable path forward,” the statement said.

In response, local organizations, including the Los Angeles LGBT Center and Gender Justice LA, scheduled a series of protests over the closure. On June 26, Pitchenik attended one of these rallies in front of the hospital, and stood on a bench to speak to the crowd: “I learned how to not only survive, but also thrive in my own body, because of the life-saving health care provided to me right here through Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.” Pitchenik is trans and nonbinary, and says they hated themselves deeply before they started counseling and medical treatment. “[Now] the next generation of trans youth aren’t going to be able to have the resource that we did,” they say.

LGBT advocates tell KCRW they are concerned current low-income patients won’t be able to find new doctors. “We’ve never had enough providers when it comes to trans youth care,” says Kathie Moehlig, the founder and executive director of the San Diego-based nonprofit TranFamily Support Services, and the mom of a trans child. Moehlig and her staff are helping about 100 of the CHLA families find new options for their kids. Even though gender-affirming care for minors is legal in California, Moehlig says fewer doctors are offering it. She’s spoken to some physicians who run private practices, and they’re scared they could be prosecuted.

Cash-Strapped LA Cities Ask Private Donors To Help Immigrants Pay Rent

Recent immigration raids have stripped many Los Angeles families of their primary breadwinner. Other immigrant workers who have not been detained are also losing income as workplaces shut down to avoid becoming the next target for masked, armed federal agents.

The economic fallout has made paying rent even more challenging for undocumented L.A. tenants, two-thirds of whom were already paying rents considered unaffordable by federal government standards. Now, local governments such as the city of L.A., Long Beach and L.A. County are asking philanthropists to fund cash assistance programs. The goal is to use private dollars to help families affected by the raids pay for rent and other expenses.

So far the efforts have been relatively small in scale. Some immigrant and tenant rights groups say cities should be digging deeper to help families in need. Local relief efforts have been complicated by municipal budget shortfalls. With the Trump administration spearheading the immigration raids, cash-strapped cities cannot rely on the federal government to provide rent relief funds, as they did during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Planned Parenthood Of California Loses $300 Million In Federal Funding

California Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the state, lost all federal funding this week under a preliminary court order that allows the money to be withheld while a larger legal dispute plays out.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America sued the Trump Administration on behalf of its members earlier in July over provisions of the congressional reconciliation bill that prohibited Medicaid reimbursements for large nonprofit health clinics that provide abortions. The lawsuit argues that the law defunds Planned Parenthood’s services in violation of multiple constitutional amendments.

The ruling, which left both parties dissatisfied, partly blocked the law from taking effect but only for a small fraction of Planned Parenthood organizations. None of California’s Planned Parenthood health centers are included.

In the Monday night ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani stated that Planned Parenthood’s arguments show a “substantial likelihood of success,” but her order did not apply to most of the organization’s nearly 600 clinics. Instead the only clinics that may continue to receive funding while the lawsuit is ongoing are those that do not provide abortions because they are located in states where it is banned. Smaller health centers that received less than $800,000 in federal funds will also be allowed to receive federal reimbursements. A previous temporary restraining order that blocked the funding cut for all Planned Parenthood health centers expired Monday. The new order replaces it. In California, the funding loss amounts to roughly $300 million and jeopardizes the sexual and reproductive health clinic network’s ability to keep its doors open throughout the state, said Jodi Hicks, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California.