San Diego Families File Civil Rights Lawsuit After Children’s Hospital Moves to End Transgender Medical Care

New lawsuit adds to widening legal fight over pediatric gender-affirming services in San Diego

A group of San Diego-area families has filed a civil rights lawsuit challenging the curtailment of gender-affirming medical care for transgender adolescents at Rady Children’s Hospital, escalating a fast-moving dispute that has already drawn state intervention and court orders.

The families’ complaint centers on the hospital system’s decision to stop providing certain transition-related services for patients under 19. The move followed growing federal scrutiny of pediatric gender-affirming care and potential funding consequences tied to the provision of such treatment. The families argue that ending care mid-course disrupts established treatment plans and unlawfully denies equal access to medically indicated services.

What care was at stake

The hospital system’s pediatric gender-affirming services have included puberty blockers and hormone therapy for some patients diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Court filings in related proceedings and subsequent judicial orders have focused on whether these medical services must continue while broader legal claims are litigated.

• Puberty blockers: medications that pause pubertal development for eligible adolescents under clinical supervision.
• Hormone therapy: prescriptions such as estrogen or testosterone as part of a medical transition for some patients.
• Surgical procedures: separate from medication-based care, and treated differently in court orders addressing what must continue.

Parallel state case and court-ordered continuation of care

The families’ suit unfolds alongside a separate action filed by California’s attorney general seeking to compel Rady Children’s Health to restore and maintain the same types and levels of gender-affirming services it provided at the time of its January 2025 merger with Children’s Hospital of Orange County. The state’s case asks the San Diego County Superior Court for permanent injunctive relief and civil penalties, arguing that the service shutdown violated obligations connected to that merger.

In February 2026, a San Diego Superior Court judge ordered the hospital system to continue providing certain forms of gender-affirming care for youth while the case proceeds, with surgical procedures treated as a separate category. Later in February, the court approved an agreement extending medication-based care through at least late April 2026 and setting an April 27, 2026 hearing date to address next steps.

Competing pressures: state nondiscrimination rules and federal funding threats

At the core of the litigation is a conflict between California’s nondiscrimination framework for healthcare access and shifting federal policy signals affecting hospitals that serve children insured through public programs. The hospital system has pointed to the risk of federal enforcement actions and financial penalties as a reason for limiting services, while the state and plaintiffs contend that existing legal protections require continuity of care and equal treatment for transgender patients.

The lawsuits raise two central questions for the court: whether discontinuing gender-affirming services constitutes unlawful discrimination, and what obligations—contractual or statutory—attach to a children’s hospital system that previously provided that care.

What comes next

The families’ civil rights case is expected to move on a separate track from the state’s enforcement action, but both proceedings turn on overlapping factual issues: what services were offered, when they were reduced, and whether the cutoff violated legal duties to patients. The court’s April 27, 2026 hearing is poised to be a key milestone in determining whether the current order requiring continued medication-based care remains in place as litigation continues.