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 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.’
