Connecticut Children’s Betrays Families Once Again with DOJ Settlement

On August 5 the Department of Justice announced a settlement with Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC) in which CCMC agreed it will not provide well-established medical care for transgender youth. 

DOJ acknowledges in its announcement that the settlement is based solely on allegations it has made against CCMC, which CCMC denies, and that there has been no determination of liability or that CCMC has violated federal law.  

GLAD Law Staff Attorney Hannah Hussey, who represents Connecticut families in a pending legal challenge against CCMC for abruptly terminating medical care for transgender adolescents and young adults in the summer of 2025, issued the following statement: 

“Connecticut Children’s Medical Center has once again betrayed Connecticut families. Last July CCMC told parents with no warning that their trusted doctors would no longer provide the care they know stops their children’s suffering and allows them to thrive. By agreeing to this settlement, the hospital has doubled-down not only on that breach of faith with parents and patients, but on its attempt to thwart its obligation under Connecticut law to provide medical care without discrimination. As CCMC itself maintains, it did not violate federal law. In fact, there is no federal law against providing medical care for transgender adolescents according to the rigorous standards of care. The Trump administration is using unprecedented threats to go after established medical care for the small population of transgender adolescents. These tactics should chill every American who believes that health care decisions should be made by parents, patients, and doctors who understand the care, not by a federal government with a political agenda.” 

Connecticut law prohibits discrimination against transgender people, including in health care. GLAD Law and Attorney Kevin Barry of Quinnipiac University School of Law represent ten Connecticut individuals and families challenging the sudden termination of medical care for transgender adolescents and young adults last July by both Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC) and Yale New Haven Health (YNHH). That legal challenge is currently pending in the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.