The Trump administration has acted to ban gender-affirming care for minors across the country.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Thursday it could pull federal funding from any US hospital that offered transgender surgeries or pharmaceutical treatment.
The department’s announcement said the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will release a notice of proposed rulemaking that will bar hospitals from performing ‘sex-rejecting’ procedures on children under 18 if the institutions want to participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs.
‘These procedures include pharmaceutical or surgical interventions of specified types that attempt to align a child’s physical appearance or body with an asserted identity different from their sex,’ HHS wrote.
‘Nearly all U.S. hospitals participate in Medicare and Medicaid and this action is designed to ensure that the U.S. government will not be in business with organizations that intentionally or unintentionally inflict permanent harm on children.’
The procedures and care flagged by HHS as ‘sex-rejecting’ are more widely defined by medical institutions as ‘gender affirming.’
CMS will also release additional proposed rulemaking that will prohibit federal Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funding for gender affirming care on minors.
Currently, 23 states provide Medicaid funding for these interventions, which include hormone and puberty blockers, mental health support and surgery, according to HHS.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Trump administration threatened Thursday to pull federal funding from hospitals providing gender affirming care to minors. HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy is pictured at left with President Donald Trump and Center for Medicare & Medicaid administrator Dr Mehmet Oz at right
The administration claimed that gender affirming care on minors can ’cause irreversible damage, including infertility, impaired sexual function, diminished bone density, altered brain development, and other irreversible physiological effects.’
HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr signed Thursday a declaration based on an HHS report published in November, which found that procedures such as hormone blockers and surgery ‘do not meet professional recognized standards of health care.’
‘Under the declaration, practitioners who perform sex-rejecting procedures on minors would be deemed out of compliance with those standards,’ HHS added.
Kennedy said Thursday: ‘Under my leadership, and answering President Trump’s call to action, the federal government will do everything in its power to stop unsafe, irreversible practices that put our children at risk.
‘This Administration will protect America’s most vulnerable. Our children deserve better—and we are delivering on that promise.’
The FDA is also issuing warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers for ‘illegal marketing’ of breast binders to children for the purposes of treating gender dysphoria, which is defined as significant distress a person feels from a mismatch between their gender identity and the sex they were assigned at birth.
Demonstrators are pictured marching to the Alabama state capitol building in Montgomery in February 2025 to protest bills that would impact transgender individuals
The agency said the binders are Class I medical devices that should only be used for women recovering from a mastectomy, which is the removal or one or both breasts, due to cancer.
FDA Commissioner Dr Marty Makary said: ‘Illegal marketing of these products for children is alarming, and the FDA will take further enforcement action such as import alerts, seizures, and injunctions if it continues.’
The Biden administration had attempted to define gender dysphoria as a disability, but HHS said it is moving to reverse those measures.
CMS administrator Dr Mehmet Oz said Thursday: ‘Children deserve our protection, not experimental interventions performed on them, that carry life-altering risks with no reliable evidence of benefit.
‘This proposal seeks to clarify that hospitals participating in our programs cannot conduct these unproven procedures on children. CMS will ensure that federal program standards reflect our responsibility to promote the health and safety of children.’
Fewer than 0.1 percent of all US adolescents receive gender affirming medications or other care, a January study found.
