Families Challenge Abrupt End to Medical Care for Transgender Adolescents and Young Adults at Two Connecticut Hospitals

GLAD Law and Attorney Kevin Barry represent ten families challenging the sudden termination of care at Yale New Haven Health and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center

Ten Connecticut individuals and families are challenging the sudden termination of medical care for transgender adolescents and young adults at Yale New Haven Health (YNHH) and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC). Both hospital systems abruptly stopped providing medically necessary care for transgender patients under 19 in late July, leaving patients and their parents stunned, and families scrambling to find alternative options for ongoing care for their children to avoid serious health risks.

The Trump administration has expressed hostility to transgender health care since taking office, but no federal policy compelled Yale New Haven Health or Connecticut Children’s Medical Center to stop providing care to their transgender patients, and neither was subject to any government action to penalize them for providing it. Connecticut law prohibits discrimination against transgender people, including in health care.

The families are represented by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law) and attorney Kevin Barry, who filed the complaints with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities on December 16.

“The families we represent are living through a nightmare, being told with no warning their trusted doctors can no longer provide the care that has stopped their children’s suffering and allowed them to thrive,” said Hannah Hussey, GLAD Law Staff Attorney. “These families have been forced to scramble for a new place to get the care their kids need, which means navigating issues such as delayed care, risks to their physical and mental health, new health care costs and time-intensive travel, and having to start all over to establish relationships with new providers – if they can find them.”

One of the impacted families now must travel nine hours to access care, and at least two of the families have not identified new doctors at all. One of the families moved to Connecticut from a state with laws hostile to transgender people, in large part for the purpose of securing stable access to health care for their transgender child, then abruptly learned from the media and other parents that their child’s medical care was ending.

For some patients, the harm of losing their trusted doctors was compounded by the notification they received about the sudden termination. One adolescent child received a Fed Ex letter addressed directly to them from YNHH while they were home alone and read the news that their medical care was now stopped with no parent there to support them.

“These hospitals have stopped providing care to our clients because they are transgender, while they continue to provide the same treatments to patients who are not transgender. That is expressly prohibited by Connecticut law,” said Attorney Kevin Barry of Quinnipiac University School of Law. “The federal administration is cruelly working to harm transgender people and undermine access to care, but states play a key role in ensuring access to safe and effective health care for their entire population.”

Connecticut law has longstanding protections against discrimination in public accommodations for transgender people and earlier this year the Governor signed legislation affirming the state’s prohibition on discrimination in the provision of health care services. Connecticut is also among multiple states challenging Trump administration efforts to block access to medically necessary care for transgender adolescents.

“These families have lost their faith in the health care system to serve their children,” Hussey added. “They are questioning how they can lose access to care overnight in a state with strong laws like Connecticut.”

The families are represented by attorneys Hannah Hussey, Ben Klein, and Donovan Bendana at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law) and by attorney Kevin Barry, Quinnipiac University School of Law.