Major California health system ending transgender procedures for minors across its network
A Sacramento-based healthcare system has announced it will stop providing transgender procedures for minors.
Sutter Health, headquartered in Sacramento, will be ending transgender procedures for minors on Wednesday, The San Francisco Standard reported.
Julie, a parent who lives in the East Bay, has a transgender son who was scheduled for a puberty-blocking injection on Jan. 3.
The parent, however, told The San Francisco Standard that, on Nov. 21, she was made aware that Sutter Health would end transgender procedures for minors effective Dec. 10.
Julie said the provider "didn’t have answers."
Its LGTBQI+ Care page says the provider is "committed to providing inclusive and compassionate care to everyone. Our team can connect you with whole-person care for your needs."
The apparent shift in ending gender transition procedures for minors comes as other hospitals have started to change policy on treatment for minors.
In June, Children's Hospital Los Angeles announced it was suspending its transgender treatment program for children.
Other healthcare providers have followed suit, with Stanford Medicine pausing transgender surgeries for minors, as well as Kaiser Permanente.
In November, U.S. Catholic bishops voted to ban gender transition treatment for transgender patients at Catholic hospitals.
After his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order telling the federal government not to "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."
A Sutter Health spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement that "like other health systems locally and across the country, we are working to ensure compliance with recent federal actions and other developments affecting the provision of gender-affirming care only for patients under 19. We remain committed to approaching this with compassion, physician guidance, and compliance with applicable requirements."
The spokesperson added, "In this evolving landscape, Sutter-aligned physicians are engaging directly with their patients to have open and thoughtful conversations and to determine individual care plans that will meet anticipated requirements. Gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19 had previously ceased, and we continue to support careful, patient-centered discussions with appropriate resources and guidance."