Doctors Sue Colorado for Forcing Them to ‘Transition’ Patients

by Jeff Johnston | September 14, 2026 | Religious Freedom Sexuality

Christian doctors and health care professionals filed a federal lawsuit challenging a Colorado law requiring  them to participate in “transitioning” sexually-confused children and adults.

The complaint was filed by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) on behalf of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, the Button Family Practice and several health care professionals who “believe that a person’s biological sex is a gift from God that cannot be changed or chosen.”

Although they’ll offer puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries for genuine necessary medical care, they won’t prescribe or perform these for clients with mental health issues, like those who reject their sex and believe they can somehow be transformed into the opposite sex.

ADF explained in a press release that state court decisions threaten these Christian health care professionals’ conscience rights:

The Colorado Supreme Court and another Colorado state court recently interpreted the state’s anti-discrimination law to force medical providers who prescribe hormones and or perform procedures for other conditions to also provide gender-transition drugs and surgeries for children and adults or risk prosecution. 

The legal aid organization added that the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) doesn’t even allow medical providers to explain “their reasons for declining to provide gender-transition procedures on their websites or to the public.”

ADF Senior Counsel Bryan Neihart said of the lawsuit:

Colorado is once again at war with common sense, sound science, and religious freedom.
Forcing doctors to perform dangerous, unproven gender-transition procedures against their medical judgment, their oath to do no harm, and their faith is unconstitutional. The state is not allowed to conscript doctors to harm the very children and adults entrusted to their care. The First Amendment trumps Colorado’s mandate to embrace the lie of gender ideology.”

The Colorado General Assembly amended CADA in 2008 adding “transgender status” to public accommodations protections – including hospitals and healthcare facilities. The legislation was amended again in 2021, through the “Gender Identity Expression Anti-Discrimination Act,” replacing “transgender status” with “gender identity” and “gender expression.”

But in 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, stating:

It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called “transition” of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.

To fulfill that mandate, the Department of Health and Human Services blocked Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program funding for puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and sex-rejecting surgeries for minors.

HHS also began investigating hospitals for harming children through medical “transgender” interventions, and its recent report “Wolves in White Coats” accused Colorado Children’s Hospital (Colorado Children’s) of falsely billing insurance companies for puberty blockers prescribed for children, listing a different condition besides “gender-identity diagnosis.” 

Following the investigation and the loss of federal funding, the TRUE Center for Gender Diversity at Children’s Hospital Colorado stopped offering these ineffective, harmful medical interventions to children.

But the hospital and healthcare workers continued to offer puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries when needed for serious, legitimate physical conditions. For example, doctors use puberty blockers to treat endometriosis or advanced prostate cancer.

Four transgender-identified minors sued Colorado Children’s, arguing it was discriminatory to offer these treatments to “cisgender adolescent patients” (i.e., an ideologically loaded term referring to those who identify with their natal sex) but not to sexually confused minors. They sought to force doctors and the hospital to treat them and other minors, or be charged with violating CADA.

A lower court agreed, blocking the hospital’s decision to shut down its clinic, and a 5-2 majority of the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in favor of that injunction, ordering hospitals to renew medical procedures for children who reject their sex.

Colorado Children’s says it is complying with the court’s decision, but its doctors have refused to offer transgender medical interventions, to minors. They are now in the midst of a contempt of court hearing.

Colorado’s anti-discrimination law and its Supreme Court are putting Christian and all biology-based doctors at risk. They must violate their religious beliefs and medical judgement, or risk being charged through Colorado’s anti-discrimination law.

Let’s pray they prevail in their lawsuit.

The case is Christian Medical & Dental Associations v. Sullivan.

Related articles and resources:

HHS Ceases Medicaid, CHIP Funding for Sex-Rejecting Procedures for Kids

HHS Will Block Hospitals From Performing Sex-Rejecting, Mutilating Procedures on Children

18 States Sue HHS for Protecting Children From Sex-Rejecting Procedures

21 States Sue HHS to Continue Harming ‘Transgender’-Identified Minors

HHS Finalizes Report Finding Sex-Rejecting Procedures Harm Minors

HHS Releases Report on Harms of ‘Transgender’ Medical interventions for Minors

President Trump Signs Order Protecting Children From Transgender Medical Interventions