Dear Attorney General Bonta:

We commend you for having issued several strong statements that California nondiscrimination law prohibits hospital systems from denying gender-affirming care to trans patients on the basis of their trans status. We appreciate your clear and strong voice. As one example among many, on December 18, 2025, you said:

“These proposed rules are the Trump Administration’s latest attempt to strip Americans of the care they need to live as their authentic selves. These rules are not only cruel, they’re also unlawful. . . . We stand ready to use every tool in our toolbox to prevent them from ever going into effect.”

Patients of all genders and sexes seek gender-affirming care; therefore, halting gender-affirming care only for trans patients is blatant discrimination under California law. Most plastic surgery, both medically indicated and elective, is gender-affirming. Gender-affirming care must be provided to all in California.

Unfortunately, despite your strong statements, some of the Trump regime's discriminatory bullying has already gone into effect in California. Several hospital systems in California have already begun denying gender-affirming care to trans youth, in violation of California law, despite the absence of any federal funding mandate in effect.

* Children’s Hospital Los Angeles halted hormonal therapies in July 2025.

* Kaiser Permanente halted gender-affirming surgery for minors in July 2025. Furthermore, the denial of gender-affirming care by Kaiser to trans members of the Kaiser School of Medicine community (medical students/faculty/residents/fellows) should be viewed as a Title IX violation, with state funding halted until gender-affirming care is reinstated.

* Stanford Medicine halted gender-affirming surgery for minors in June 2025.

* Sutter Health announced it would halt gender-affirming care for patients under 19 in December 2025, only to backtrack after advocacy from the community. Sutter’s experience shows that there are no actual legal threats to these hospital systems currently to halt these forms of lifesaving medical care, and that advocacy can work.

We appreciate your strong stance and legal action against the Trump regime. We urge you to back up your strong statements with legal action against California health-care providers who flout California law. We urge you to sue Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Kaiser Permanente, and Stanford Medicine to force them to stop discriminating against their trans patients and community members and resume providing all medically indicated care to all patients. We urge you to put Sutter Health and other California hospital systems on notice that you will take legal action against them if they discriminate against trans patients. Legal liability is the language hospital administrators speak. Please speak it clearly to California hospitals.

We thank you for your continued strong statements and action against the federal regime, and we hope to see legal action in California showing that your statements have teeth and California law will be enforced.