USA: Colorado forces doctors to medically transition patients or risk prosecution

(ZENIT News / Denver, 09.11.2026).- Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing the Christian Medical & Dental Associations and a Christian medical practice filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday, Sep 9, challenging a Colorado law that forces healthcare professionals to participate in so-called gender transition procedures for children and adults, even when doing so violates their religious, ethical, and medical judgment.

CMDA is a group of Christian healthcare professionals, with members in Colorado, who practice consistent with their faith. The Button Family Practice P.C. is a family-owned primary care clinic serving patients in a small town in southern Colorado by providing patient-centered medical care. Marcus Button, M.D., is a physician and CMDA member who operates the practice according to his religious beliefs.

“Colorado is once again at war with common sense, sound science, and religious freedom,” said ADF Senior Counsel Bryan Neihart. “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 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. Furthermore, the law prohibits medical providers from explaining their reasons for declining to provide gender-transition procedures on their websites or to the public.

The lawsuit explains that systematic scientific and medical reviews and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have concluded that no reliable evidence exists to support the benefits of these interventions, while there are numerous documented and serious risks. Meanwhile, more than half of the states in the United States and many European governments ban or limit these procedures for children.

Attorneys filed Christian Medical & Dental Associations v. Sullivan in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. Shaun Pearman of Pearman Law Firm, P.C., is serving as local counsel.

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