Kaiser Permanente hospitals will “pause surgical treatment for patients under the age of 19” effective August 29, the Oakland, Calif.-based health care giant announced last week, citing “significant risks being created for health systems” by an evolving “legal and regulatory environment.” The surgical pause applies to all Kaiser locations nationwide, but the hospital chain will continue to provide gender transition hormones and therapy support. Yet even this modest concession drew stiff criticism from transgender ideologues.

News of Kaiser’s policy change was broken by the right-wing activist known as “Billboard Chris,” who obtained “an internal email sent by [Kaiser Permanente] CEO Greg Adams. Kaiser Permanente later confirmed the decision in a statement to The Washington Times.

“As the legal and regulatory environment for gender-affirming care continues to evolve, we must carefully consider the significant risks being created for health systems, clinicians, and patients under the age of 19 seeking this care,” Kaiser explained. (This framing will be revisited below; for now, simply note that Kaiser uses word “care” to describe the surgical removal of healthy breasts and, more rarely, the surgical removal of healthy sexual organs, resulting in permanent sterility.)

“After significant deliberation and consultation with internal and external experts including our physicians, we’ve made the difficult decision to pause surgical treatment for patients under the age of 19 in our hospitals and surgical centers,” continued Kaiser. (Again, notice that Kaiser views gender transition surgeries on minors as good, such that their decision to pause is a “difficult” one made only under duress.)

Kaiser alludes to the Trump administration’s efforts to shut down gender transition procedures for minors, following an executive order President Donald Trump issued in January. More recently, the Department of Justice subpoenaed nearly 20 doctors and hospitals over their practice of providing gender transition procedures to minors.

In response to pressure from the Trump administration, multiple major hospitals have recently discontinued their gender transition programs, including Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Stanford Medicine, and Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Kaiser also faces potential legal liability after a former patient, Chloe Cole, sued the hospital in 2023, accusing Kaiser of pushing her into irreversible gender transition procedures without informing her of the long-term effects. Cole, now 18, started puberty blockers and testosterone through Kaiser Permanente at the tender age of 13, and Kaiser surgeons removed her breasts at age 15.

Cole later came to regret the attempted transition and has become one of the most prominent detransitioner spokeswomen. “I missed having a more feminine body, I missed some of the little things about female socialization,” Cole said. Because of the irreversible changes Kaiser Permanente medical personnel made to her body in the name of gender transition while she was still a minor, Cole lives with lifelong complications.

Yet Kaiser remains unchastened by the harm they caused Chloe Cole. They paused minor gender transition surgeries for business reasons only, while continuing to cajole young people into the detrimental and deceptive delusion to change their sex. Kaiser reiterated that they will continue providing all other gender transition procedures to minors, including cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and pro-trans counseling. Surgeries represent only a small fraction of all gender transition procedures provided to minors.

Yet even this clarification did not shield Kaiser from leftist attacks. “This is pre-emptively giving in to government overreach in health care,” complained Lady Rainsard, a registered nurse in plastic surgery at Kaiser San Francisco, speaking for the California Nurses Association. “Medical providers, not politicians, know what’s best for our patients. Gender-affirming care is safe and effective. … We deem it a much greater risk to cave to this kind of government overreach than it is to provide this care for our patients, no matter their age.”

“Rule number one in fighting fascism is that bending the knee to a tyrant only invites more tyranny. It’s disappointing that some of our largest institutions keep losing [sight] of that proven fact,” added California Senator Scott Wiener (D), a longtime LGBT proponent. “Denying care to trans kids is wrong and illegal.” (Again, note how surgically removing healthy body parts as a supplementary support to a mental delusion is described as “care.”)

Readers may be confused by this outrage because, as state after state enacted SAFE (Save Adolescents From Experimentation) Acts, advocates of gender transition procedures argued that gender transition surgeries were never carried out on minors and were not even recommended according to the best medical guidelines.

While medical providers in conservative-leaning states felt the need to bury the most extreme aspects of transitioning minors, those in California clearly do not. Thus, Kaiser Permanente carried out gender transition surgeries on minors at its flagship facility, as the announcement of a pause implicitly concedes. And, despite its best efforts to apologize for the pause on surgeries, Kaiser still faced open criticism from a nurses’ association and a state senator.

The incident recalls a classic Biden administration backtrack from July 2024. After the White House released a statement that included the line, “We believe these surgeries should be limited to adults,” pro-transgender activists blasted it. The Human Rights Campaign called the statement “wrong on the science and wrong on the substance.” Within days, the Biden administration caved to the pressure with a revised statement, which said that gender transition surgeries “are typically reserved for adults, and we believe they should be.”

Incidents like these showcase the full extremism of pro-transgender ideologues. When a bill looks to protect minors from all gender transition procedures, activists are happy to retreat to a defense of hormonal treatments only. As a matter of political expedience, they will argue that gender transition surgeries for minors are vanishingly rare, because they recognize that surgeries are more extreme interventions that provoke more visceral reactions.

Yet these activists show the same degree of ferocity when only gender transition surgeries are threatened. Even when a pro-transgender hospital like Kaiser merely pauses surgeries until minors (that is, minors in their late teens) turn 19, it is treated as a total capitulation of medicine to politics.

This shows that the fight is far from over. While major hospitals may bend before the Trump administration’s push to protect children, transgender activists are prepared to fight as hard as ever to retain every inch of ground they gained. “We’re not done,” tweeted California school board president Sonja Shaw. “Kids can’t consent to mutilation. Blockers are next. … Protect children. End the lies.”