Virginia Children's Hospitals Keep Transgender Care Paused Amid Litigation
Children's hospitals in Virginia, including VCU's Children's Hospital of Richmond, CHKD in Norfolk, and UVA Health Children's Hospital, have kept transgender health services for patients under 19 on hold for over a year following a January 2025 executive order threatening federal funding cuts. A multi-state lawsuit led by the ACLU challenges the order as discriminatory and beyond presidential authority; a judge temporarily blocked funding cuts, but the administration has appealed, leaving the case pending before the Fourth Circuit with a hearing set for December 11. Separately, the administration has adopted a rule barring Medicaid and CHIP coverage of transgender services for minors. Hospitals remain in legal limbo, with an ACLU attorney arguing nothing in federal law currently bars them from resuming care.