‘It’s Just Cruel’: Bay Area Parents Say Sutter Health Is Set to Halt Trans Youth Care

After six months of gender-affirming care and a first puberty blocker shot for her 10-year-old son in September, Julie noticed him carrying himself differently. His back was straight, he was no longer hiding his body, and he was confident with eye contact.

But last Friday, the East Bay parent received a call and an email from a Sutter Health caregiver that she’s afraid to tell her son about. She asked KQED to use only her first name because she is afraid of retribution against her and her son’s caregiver.

The day prior, on Transgender Day of Remembrance, hospital higher-ups informed Julie’s son’s caregiver that they would no longer offer gender-affirming care to patients younger than 19. That care could stop as soon as Dec. 10, they said, according to the caregiver’s messages.

That left Julie with just over two weeks, including a major holiday, to find a new physician for her son.

“It’s just cruel, and I continue to be heartbroken, overwhelmed and livid,” Julie said. “It’s the week of Thanksgiving. Everyone’s gone, and they knew that that was going to be the case.”

Julie isn’t the only parent gutted by the potential decision. At least 10 families are working through the emotions and the looming reality of finding new care for their kids, according to Rainbow Families Action, a group made up of parents and allies of trans youth. More than a dozen advocacy groups are pressuring Sutter Health, a nonprofit health care system serving more than 3.5 million Californians, to provide more details about the information their children’s physicians relayed to them.

Sutter Health would not confirm or deny what parents told KQED. In a statement on Tuesday, a spokesperson wrote that the hospital network is “working to ensure compliance with recent federal actions” and remains “committed to approaching this with compassion, physician guidance, and compliance with applicable requirements.”

Like other hospital groups, the network had already halted gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19, and officials are now prioritizing “open and thoughtful conversations between physicians and their patients to determine the best path forward for individual care plans,” the statement said.

If the decision is true, Sutter Health would join a growing list of health care providers moving to limit care for trans youth under building pressure from the Trump administration. In June, Stanford Medicine paused gender-affirming surgeries and stopped prescribing puberty blockers to youth. In July, Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente, which serves more than 12 million people across eight states, announced it stopped offering surgical gender-affirming treatments for trans minors.

Advocacy groups sent a letter on Tuesday to Sutter Health, demanding that the network “reverse course on this decision immediately” and provide a meeting between leaders and families, a commitment to “not pre-capitulate before it’s legally necessary,” as well as a formal plan if the network ends gender-affirming care for youth.

“We refuse to stand by while Sutter pre-emptively bows to political pressure instead of standing up for our kids,” Rainbow Families Action wrote.

Arne Johnson, a lead advocate with the group, said parents and allies are planning a series of actions to protest the potential cessation and have asked Sutter Health leadership “to clarify before this becomes a much bigger thing.”

“We are offering to have those conversations because they are saying we’re going to do this in thoughtful consideration, but they have not actually done that,” Johnson said. “We are going to consider that an invitation, and assume that they are in fact going to meet with patients and families and make a real plan for their care.”

Johnson said the group has also reached out to California Attorney General Rob Bonta over the legality of the potential decision. State law prohibits health care discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and earlier this month, the attorney general’s office issued a guidance reminding Californians that they “have the right to receive medically necessary gender-affirming care or any other medically necessary healthcare without discrimination.”

Another mother, Nikki, also from the East Bay, found out on her 14-year-old son’s birthday that his care could end. A caregiver said they would return from vacation early to ensure Julie’s son had at least one more visit before the cutoff. She also asked KQED to only use her first name.

“It’s terrifying, and I haven’t told my son because the news came on his birthday,” Nikki said. “Psychologically, it makes you not trust your doctors. It makes you not trust the government.”

Nikki is angry that the move would come after open enrollment, when the family could have joined another health care network to ensure her son could continue to receive his weekly medication.

As a queer person who sought the Bay Area more than two decades ago as a place of refuge, Nikki said she is flabbergasted by the potential decision.

“I’m kind of frozen,” she said. “I don’t know that I’m moving forward other than making some phone calls right before the holidays, just [to] desperately see what doctors can help us.”

Julie said she hasn’t been able to reach any new doctors yet in her search for a new care team for her son.

“They have taken away our ability to have care that goes in alignment with my doctor’s recommendation,” Julie said. “I have to move forward. We have to find another doctor, and who is that going to be with? I don’t know of anyone who is going to take this kid. And that sucks.”

She sees this as a sign that other care for the general public could be next on the chopping block.

“If they can take evidence-based care that is legal in the state of California and is medically necessary, lifesaving care for my child, what the f— is next?” Julie said. “It’s just a slippery slope.”