Trump Administration Takes Steps to End Transgender Healthcare For Youth

On Thursday, health officials in the Trump administration declared that the federal government will prohibit transgender healthcare for children by focusing on hospitals and doctors who offer such services, Jamie Gumbrecht and Sarah Owermohle reported for CNN.

“New proposed rules would prohibit hospitals from participating in Medicare and Medicaid if they provide care such as puberty blockers and surgeries for transgender minors, and would prevent federal coverage of such treatments,” Gumbrecht and Owermohle wrote.

“These actions will ensure that the federal government in no way funds directly gender transition procedures on minors and also does not fund facilities that perform these procedures,” a department official said during a call with reporters, Jo Yurcaba and Erika Edwards reported for NBC News.

Over fifty percent of U.S. states have already banned or limited gender-affirming care, APNews reported. However, the announcement on Thursday threatens access in almost twenty states where such treatments and surgeries are still legal and covered by Medicaid, using both federal and state funds.

“This is not medicine, it is malpractice,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said of gender-affirming procedures on children in a news conference. The doctors betrayed their Hippocratic oath to do no harm, Kennedy said. “So-called gender-affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people.”

On the same day, Kennedy announced that the HHS Office of Civil Rights will propose a rule excluding gender dysphoria from the definition of a disability, according to PBS News. “And, in a related move, the Food and Drug Administration issued warning letters to a dozen companies that market chest-binding vests and other equipment used by people with gender dysphoria.”

Anthony Wright, Families USA’s executive director, issued a statement following the news. “Every major U.S. medical association supports young people’s access to age-appropriate gender-affirming care because of strong scientific evidence for the safety and effectiveness of such care. While these anti-science changes have not been finalized yet, trans youth can and should still access the care they need and deserve.”