{"id":160963,"date":"2026-02-02T23:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T23:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/160963\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T23:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T23:09:07","slug":"ag-bonta-sues-childrens-hospital-of-ocs-parent-company-for-ending-gender-affirming-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/160963\/","title":{"rendered":"AG Bonta sues Children\u2019s Hospital of OC\u2019s parent company for ending gender-affirming care"},"content":{"rendered":"

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed a lawsuit against the parent company of Children\u2019s Hospital of Orange County for violating the terms of a recently signed merger agreement<\/a> when it decided to cut off hormone therapy and other gender-affirming treatments to about 1,500 patients.<\/p>\n

Last month, Rady Children\u2019s Health announced the restrictions, which take effect Feb. 6. It pointed to recent federal actions in its decision.<\/p>\n

The healthcare system said that it would still offer hormone replacement therapy to patients 19 and older. It would also and continue to see its patients 18 and under for treatments without hormones or surgeries.<\/p>\n

Bonta\u2019s lawsuit, however, alleges<\/a> the hospital system broke an agreement it had signed with his office just a year ago. That contract<\/a> guaranteed that it would continue offering the same level of care to its patients through 2034 in many divisions of health care, including gender-affirming care.<\/p>\n

Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n

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\u201cRady flagrantly disregarded its legal obligations by unilaterally deciding to preemptively comply with the Administration\u2019s demands and cease medically necessary care for roughly 1,450 patients,\u201d Bonta wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

What the lawsuit says<\/p>\n

Bonta is seeking a permanent injunction that would require Rady to restore \u201call gender-affirming care services to the same types and levels of care as were provided at the time of Rady\u2019s merger in January 2025\u201d at CHOC. The injunction would also apply to Rady Children\u2019s Hospital in San Diego, and its other hospitals and clinics across Southern California.<\/p>\n

Bonta also pointed to the long-term health effects and complications that would result from taking trans youth off of their prescribed hormone treatments, echoing concerns that medical professionals have shared with LAist.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven brief interruptions in gender-affirming medical care can have a detrimental impact on a patient\u2019s mental health and overall well-being,\u201d the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n

Bonta also pointed to the short notice \u2014 just over two weeks \u2014 given to families, and said it left \u201chundreds of patients in medical limbo.\u201d<\/p>\n

The father of a trans patient at Rady Children\u2019s Health told LAist he found out from the San Diego based nonprofit TransFamily Support Services that his son\u2019s hormones could no longer be prescribed by his son\u2019s provider. He later found out that he’d been notified through a brief statement in a portal in its health care app, with no information about next steps. He said he was not otherwise contacted directly by the hospital.<\/p>\n

Bonta\u2019s office declined to comment further on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

What the hospital system is saying<\/p>\n

In a statement to LAist, Rady Children\u2019s Health said it is \u201caware of the lawsuit filed by the California Attorney General and is reviewing the filing.\u201d It did not clarify if it planned to go forward with previously announced restrictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat decision was guided by our responsibilities as a nonprofit pediatric healthcare system to continue serving all children and families across our communities, including through participation in essential federal programs,\u201d Rady Children\u2019s Health wrote.<\/p>\n

The hospital system said that it will address Bonta\u2019s concerns \u201cthrough the legal process.\u201d It did not respond when LAist asked directly if this meant it was undoing its previously announced restrictions.<\/p>\n

The hospital has pointed to recent federal actions, which include proposals aimed at restricting gender-affirming care for youth, as the reasoning behind its move. The federal HHS rule changes are still going through a required 60-day comment period, which will end on February 17. The rules, even if they\u2019re upheld by courts, may not take effect until later in the spring.<\/p>\n

What advocates for trans health are saying<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are clearly in violation of their contract. They’re clearly in violation of the law,\u201d Kathie Moehlig, founder and executive director of TransFamily Support Services, said. \u201cWe didn’t see any action happen around [CHLA\u2019s trans youth clinic] when it closed, other than a letter from the Attorney General, but actually taking a legal stance is good. Somebody\u2019s standing up for our families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moehlig also pointed to the \u201cslow drip\u201d of actions taken by Rady Children\u2019s Health to restrict access to its gender-affirming health care services, and noted that the state Attorney General\u2019s office appears not to have been notified about any of them.<\/p>\n

TransFamily Support Services regularly works to connect families seeking gender-affirming health services with providers, including at CHOC and other Rady\u2019s Health hospitals.<\/p>\n

Moehlig also familiar with the health care system for another reason: Her son was the first patient treated at Rady Children\u2019s Hospital\u2019s gender-affirming care clinic in San Diego 14 years ago, well before the care began to become restricted in Republican-led states and nationally.<\/p>\n

The rare move from Bonta follows protests and blowback from the community in Southern California, as protests were held outside CHOC<\/a> and Rady\u2019s Children Hospital in San Diego<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What this means<\/p>\n

Bonta\u2019s lawsuit marks a new enforcement mechanism in the state\u2019s tactics to protect gender-affirming care for youth.<\/p>\n

Up to this point, Bonta has not directly intervened with hospitals in closures and restrictions for trans youth health care through lawsuits, opting instead to send hospitals letters warning them of potential legal action.<\/p>\n

Many of the legal issues around gender-affirming care for youth, and whether the federal government’s actions to restrict it are legal, have still yet to be settled. There are multiple ongoing and expected lawsuits to settle the issue of whether the federal HHS can act to restrict trans youth health care by outlawing the allocation of Medicare and Medicaid funds for healthcare providers that offer it.<\/p>\n

Many advocates have accused the federal government of overreach and using improper enforcement mechanisms to strong-arm hospitals into closing or limiting access to clinics for trans youth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed a lawsuit against the parent company of Children\u2019s Hospital of Orange…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,78216,4297,1846,2794],"class_list":["post-160963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-childrens-hospital-of-oc","tag-gender-affirming-care","tag-lawsuit","tag-rob-bonta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}