Mental health workers at Kaiser Permanente are protesting a policy that pauses gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19.
Kaiser announced the pause, which will go into effect Aug. 29, following pressure from the Trump administration to stop trans youth from accessing gender-affirming care. Other gender-affirming treatments, like puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and mental health care will still be available, SF Gate reported.
The workers are represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which has 19,000 members in total. Of that, 4,700 are psychologists, social workers, and marriage and family therapists at Kaiser Permanente’s California and Hawaii locations. The union also has trans members, parents of trans children, and staff who provide gender-affirming care regularly, Sal Rosselli, president emeritus at NUHW, told Healthcare Brew.
Fight for rights. Rosselli said the union “has a long track record of standing up for the rights of patients to get the care they need and countering misinformation that could lead to patients not getting appropriate care.”
During the HIV/AIDs crisis, for example, he said NUHW helped educate members who were afraid of treating patients. In April, the union also alleged Kaiser was illegally using unlicensed clerks to direct mental health care.
“The federal government is trampling on the rights of patients to get care that could save lives,” he said. “We’ll always defend the principle that medical choices should be made by patients in consultation with their doctors and loved ones, not by the federal government.”
The union and staff said they have not heard back from Kaiser, Rosselli said.
Kathleen Chambers, a spokesperson for Kaiser, told us in an emailed statement that “we appreciate the union raising their concern for patients seeking gender-affirming care. This is an extremely challenging and stressful time for our patients, as well as for our clinicians whose mission is to care for them.”
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Zoom out. California providers Stanford Medicine and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have also recently stopped providing some gender-affirming services for trans youth. At Stanford, “gender-related surgical procedures” have stopped as of early June, while the Children’s Hospital closed its pediatric gender clinic on July 22.
Rosselli said the union opposes those decisions as well, but is focused on Kaiser due to the nearly 5,000 mental health workers it represents there.
“They’re on the front lines, and they understand how the care is provided and how important it is, both for the child and their family, that they have control over medical conditions in consultation with their doctors,” he said.
Providers around the country are trying to manage “significant risks” for patients and caregivers as they respond to President Trump’s executive order that instructs the federal government to block funding for gender-affirming care and subpoena providers who provide it, Chambers said.
“In response to these federal actions, many health systems and clinicians across the country have paused or discontinued providing gender-affirming care for adolescents,” Chambers said. “Only after significant deliberation and consultation with internal and external experts, including our physicians, did we make the difficult decision to pause gender-affirming surgical treatment for patients under the age of 19.”
These policies can have life and death consequences, as LGBTQ+ organization the Trevor Project reported in 2024 that suicide attempt rates among minors reached as high as 72% in states with laws limiting gender-affirming care for youth.