Hospital Denies Breast-Enlargement Surgery to Trans Woman

When Charlene Hastings of San Francisco called Seton Medical Center, a Catholic hospital in Daly City, Calif., about breast-enlargement surgery, she was told, "God made you a man."

According to The [San Jose] Mercury News, Hastings, 57, said she had found and chosen a surgeon at the hospital, Leonard Gray, who was willing to perform the procedure. When he was denied the rights, Hastings filed suit against the hospital, challenging its ability to operate according to religious principles.

While she had already undergone the major part of her gender-reassignment surgery, she was denied the breast augmentation by a surgical coordinator, who said the facilities were not to be used for transgender surgeries.

"She kept saying, 'It's not God's will,'" Hastings said. "I could not believe it. It's a blatant case of discrimination."

While state law does allow religious hospitals to refuse to perform abortions, there are no specific exemptions for elective transgender surgery.

Kristina Wertz, legal director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco, said this isn't the only such incident. "Seton and other hospitals in the area have put up significant barriers to care for transgender people."

"There's simply no religious exemption in the Unruh Act," Wertz said about California's law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. "We're talking about a type of care that's OK for one class but not another."

"Seton Medical Center provides medically necessary services to all individuals," said Elizabeth Nikels, vice president of communications for the Daughters of Charity, an organization that operates Seton and five other Catholic Hospitals in the area. "However, the hospital does not perform surgical procedures contrary to Catholic teaching."

Hastings's lawyer, Christopher Dolan, said the case not just about the hospital's religious procedures but also about civil rights.

"It is about transgender people being able to use businesses and other facilities on an equal basis as other people. If you took out 'transgender' in the lawsuit and replaced it with 'African-American,' this would be a no-brainer," he said.

The hospital does allow female patients who are not transgender the right to breast-enlargement surgeries. (The Advocate)