On Wednesday, attorneys with GLAD Law filed civil rights complaints against Yale New Haven Health and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, accusing the hospital systems in New England of unlawfully cutting off gender-affirming medical care for transgender patients under 19, even though Connecticut law explicitly protects access to that care.
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The filings with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities argue that the hospitals discriminated against transgender patients by terminating medically necessary treatment while continuing to provide the same medications to non-transgender youth. For the families involved, the legal action formalizes a rupture that began months earlier, when the care they relied on disappeared almost overnight.
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“These two institutions abruptly stopped providing transgender medical care for patients under 19, which left families scrambling for a new place to get the care they need,” Hannah Hussey, a staff attorney at GLAD Law working on the cases, told The Advocate in an interview. “And that’s been really devastating for families.”
In July, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center announced it would begin winding down its pediatric gender-affirming care program, citing a “complex and evolving landscape.” A day later, Yale New Haven Health said it would no longer provide hormone-based gender-affirming care to patients under 19, though it would continue mental health and other services.
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The decisions effectively eliminated the two largest providers of such care in the state.
For families, the timing was jarring and confusing. Connecticut has not banned gender-affirming care for minors. No state or federal law required the hospitals to stop. Just weeks earlier, the governor had signed legislation reaffirming the state’s prohibition on discrimination in health care.
“That’s a really important point here,” Hussey said. “There was no federal, there was no state policy requiring the hospitals to shut off this care. And to the contrary, Connecticut has strong non-discrimination laws that protect access to health care for transgender people.”
The complaints are filed on behalf of 10 individuals,, including parents of transgender children and an 18-year-old transgender man.
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“One of our clients is 18 years old,” Hussey said. “So he’s a young man who was learning to navigate the health care system as a young adult for the first time when this happened, and that was an incredibly stressful position to be in.”
Another family, Hussey said, moved to Connecticut specifically to protect their ability to receive care.
“One of our client families actually moved to Connecticut from a state with laws hostile to transgender people, in large part because they wanted to secure consistent access to health care for their child,” she said. “And so they were receiving care before, abruptly learning from the media and from other parents that their child’s medical treatment through their provider would be ending.”
Under Connecticut law, hospitals are considered places of public accommodation and are barred from denying services based on gender identity. The complaints argue that by ending care for transgender patients, while continuing to prescribe puberty blockers and hormones to other minors for different medical reasons, the hospitals treated one group differently because of who they are.
The consequences, Hussey said, have been immediate.
“They are facing issues like delayed care, risks to their children’s physical and mental health,” she said. “They’re dealing with challenges in some cases, like the potential for new health care costs, time-intensive travel to get care.”
One family now travels nine hours for appointments. Others have yet to secure replacement providers.
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“Everyone understands how difficult it is to establish a relationship with a new doctor and to build that trust,” Hussey said. “And so these are young people and families having to start all over from scratch with building that relationship and building trust in new providers — if they can even find them.”
The disruption has extended beyond logistics.
“These changes have shaken families’ faith in the health care system to serve their children,” Hussey said. “They’re questioning how it can be possible that they can lose access overnight to medically necessary treatment in a state with strong non-discrimination laws like Connecticut.”
The hospital decisions unfolded amid a volatile national backdrop. In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to limit support for gender-affirming care for people under 19. Although the order does not override Connecticut law, hospital systems across the country have cited federal pressure in reassessing pediatric care.
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Those pauses have been publicly applauded by conservative advocacy groups opposed to gender-affirming care. In October, Do No Harm, a right-wing organization that campaigns against such treatment, celebrated hospitals, including the two Connecticut systems, that halted pediatric services.
“When you think about the bigger picture here,” Hussey said, “we’re seeing attacks on health care broadly, on medical science and on medical institutions.” She added, “What’s really critical is to stand up for vulnerable populations, including transgender people, and for the health care they need.”
GLAD Law is seeking orders requiring the hospitals to comply with Connecticut law and resume care.
“What we want is for these hospitals and health care systems to comply with their obligations under Connecticut law,” Hussey said. “We want them to start providing the health care services to transgender young people that they have been providing [and] to reinstate care for our clients and for other patients.”
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