Samantha Fields

Even though the new rule is not in effect yet, a number of hospitals around the country have already stopped offering gender-affirming care to minors, including two in Colorado, Children's Hospital and Denver Health.

Casey Cash, a family nurse practitioner in Fort Collins, was on vacation with her family for the new year when the news broke.

What?

Cash is not affiliated with either hospital.

She and her longtime colleague, Dr. Stacey Johns, just opened a nonprofit primary care practice in November called the Iris Center.

Among the services they offer is gender-affirming care, including for kids and teenagers, which is backed by major American medical associations.

That can include prescribing puberty blockers or hormones.

At their practice, it does not include surgery.

John says they knew local hospitals might stop offering transition-related care to kids at some point because they can't afford to lose Medicare and Medicaid funding.

But they didn't think it would happen so soon.

We thought we had at least till April.

Instead, they only had until January 2nd, a Friday.

I think that Monday we were getting an average of about 20 requests an hour.

Cash and John's practice is not specifically for gender-affirming care, but they offer it.

And John says in recent days, they've been doing a lot of triage, trying to help as many transgender kids as they can get the care they need.

But we are only two people.

So kind of balancing the need of all of our patients has been challenging.

It's also just a challenging time to be a doctor or nurse caring for trans kids in this country.

27 states have banned transition-related care for minors in the last few years.

Some providers in those states have uprooted their families and careers to move to places where they can still practice.