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Catholic Hospital Sued For Refusing Transgender Surgery

By Howard Friedman

In San Francisco Superior Court, a transgendered individual who had completed gender reassignment surgery to become a woman sued a Catholic hospital in Daly City (CA) that refused to permit her physician to perform breast augmentation surgery in the hospital. The complaint (full text) in Hastings v. Seton Medical Center alleges that the hospital's outpatient surgery manager told plaintiff that she could not have surgery at the hospital because "God made you a man." Fox News on Friday reported on the case in which plaintiff seeks damages and injunctive relief, alleging gender discrimination in violation of California's Unruh Civil Rights Act and a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress. A spokeswoman for the Daughters of Charity Health System (of which Seton Medical Center is a part) said in a written statement: "Vincentian and Catholic values form the basis of our identity and set the parameters for our ethics and standards of behavior in health care."

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 20, 2008 (boomark / email).