Children’s Hospital Colorado has stopped performing chest reconstruction on transgender patients, though it will continue to offer non-surgical gender-affirming care.
The hospital never performed surgery on patients under 18, and recently stopped offering it to young adults, spokeswoman Rachael Fowler said. Staff are assisting adult patients with referrals to other hospitals if they want to pursue surgery, she said.
Patients can still receive other gender-affirming care in line with professional guidelines, which could include puberty-blocking medication or hormones, depending on the patient’s needs, Fowler said.
A Denver woman whose son intended to receive “top surgery” – removal of the mammary glands and sculpting to create a masculine chest appearance – said her family was referred to the University of Colorado Hospital’s surgery center, which only operates on adults. While her son will turn 18 this fall, she’s concerned the delay could mean that he won’t be able to get the surgery before leaving for college next year, which was his goal. She asked to remain anonymous to protect his privacy.
Before they could schedule the surgery at Children’s, a psychologist and her son’s primary care provider had to sign off that he was physically healthy and able to make a decision about the procedure, and their insurance had to agree to pay for it, the Denver woman said. Even with all of those pieces in place in July, they expected he wouldn’t be scheduled until spring, and that timeline may be pushed back even further if University of Colorado Hospital requires his primary care provider or psychologist to do an updated evaluation, she said.
“We’ll have to start the whole process over,” she said.
Children’s Hospital Colorado has largely scrubbed references to gender-affirming care from its website. A phone directory includes a number for the TRUE Center for Gender Diversity, but removed the second half of its name, and the center can’t be searched on the website. A search for the term “transgender” turns up a handful of doctors’ names – without making clear if they provide gender-affirming care – as well as articles about HIV prevention.
It’s part of a trend. STAT News found at least 21 hospitals had made changes to the websites for their gender-affirming care programs as of October, often after receiving online harassment. Some removed clinicians’ names, while others took down entire pages.
“Children’s hospitals across the country have been directly threatened as a result of the gender-affirming care provided in their institutions,” Fowler said. “We have taken steps as an organization to protect the safety of our team members, patients and families.”
The Denver woman said the providers her son saw at Children’s called to check on the family and offer additional support through the delay. While her son is mentally healthy enough to handle the setback, other trans teens may not fare as well, she said. Her son is on a wilderness trip and hasn’t yet heard about the delay.
“I think he’s going to be very disappointed,” she said. “He was so looking forward to this.”
