Trump HHS announces major reduction in gender reassignment procedures for teenagers
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The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a major package of proposed regulatory measures on Thursday to end “sexual denial practices” for young people as part of President Donald Trump’s January order asking the department to protect children from “chemical and surgical mutilation.”
HHS is introducing a series of policy revisions and regulatory measures that could defund hospitals that offer gender reassignment procedures, according to an HHS official.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released policy proposals that would prohibit hospitals from performing contraceptives, cross-sex hormones and certain surgeries on patients under 18 “as a condition of participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.” Most US hospitals participate in Medicare and Medicaid, according to HHS.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released another proposed rule that would block federal Medicaid funding for procedures aimed at reassigning a child under the age of 18, and HHS said it would also apply to federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program for similar procedures for people under the age of 19.
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The Department of Health and Human Services has announced sweeping regulatory proposals to end federal funding for transgender procedures on children. (Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Overall, according to the HHS official, the actions will ensure that no federal funds directly support gender reassignment procedures for minors.
The announcement comes after HHS released a peer-reviewed report in November that found medical procedures changing a child’s natural sex poses significant long-term risks to children.
The report was released by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and found that surgeries used to reverse the sex of the child – including the use of puberty drugs, sex hormones and surgery — “they are important, long-term, and often overlooked or not properly tracked.”
The November report was an update to HHS’ May report that reviewed the evidence and best practices for children with gender dysphoria, which was criticized by a number of medical groups for disrespecting the study authors and allegedly not standing up to medical consensus on the issue.
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In another incident on Thursday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. signed a declaration that such procedures on children do not meet professional medical standards. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
In another incident on Thursday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. signed a declaration that such procedures on children do not meet valid medical standards, based on this study, which warns that “practitioners who perform sterilization procedures on children will be considered as not meeting those standards.”
The Food and Drug Administration also announced Thursday, as part of a crackdown on medical problems in children, that it has sent warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers after “unlawful marketing of breast implants to children.”
On the civil rights level, HHS plans to reverse a Biden-era effort to treat gender dysphoria as a disability under federal law. A new proposed revision of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 would clarify that the definitions of “disability” and “person with a disability” do not include “gender dysphoria” that is not the result of a physical disability.
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The announcement is expected to be met with pushback from left-wing Democrats, who have continued to fight for “gender-affirming care” for children.
Transgender issues became a political football toward the end of Trump’s first administration and for the Biden administration, which has repeatedly announced support for the trans community and international youth. In November, 130 Members of Congress, for example, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in November in two lawsuits that focused on transgender students playing on a school sports team that is the opposite of their natural gender.
Minnesotans held a rally at the capitol to support transgender children in Minnesota, Texas and across the country. (Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Proponents of medical procedures aimed at changing the sex of a child argue that preventing such medical care can cause depression and anxiety, even suicide and should be protected.
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The president Donald Trump he has repeatedly spoken out against child conversion practices as “an act of abuse” since before his 2024 re-election.
The president and the Make America Healthy Commission he established at the beginning of 2025 have doubled down on the fact that there are only two natural sexes, including Trump signing an executive order stating that the US only recognizes the sexes of men and women while also ending the “great and wasteful” diversity, equality and inclusion in the government.
