The Trump administration launched its biggest attack yet on transgender youth.
On Wednesday night, the House passed a bill criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors. Under the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which passed almost completely along party lines, doctors could be imprisoned for up to 10 years if they give trans minors gender-affirming surgeries or hormones.
Then on Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a series of proposed regulatory moves aimed at ending gender-affirming care for minors. The actions would forbid any hospitals participating in Medicare and Medicaid from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries to minors. Nearly all hospitals participate in those programs — and Medicaid accounted for nearly one-fifth of all hospital care spending in 2023. The House then passed a bill banning Medicaid from covering gender-affirming care for trans youth.
The HHS also announced that the FDA is issuing warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers of breast binders, claiming it's illegal to market them to children for treating gender dysphoria.
Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement that these policies "misconstrue the current medical consensus and fail to reflect the realities of pediatric care and the needs of children and families.... These rules help no one, do nothing to address health care costs, and unfairly stigmatize a population of young people.”
"If we deny people medical treatment, then that’s a source of stress and mental health harm," Joshua Safer, MD, FACP, FACE, the executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York, told us last year. "We have statistics of people who've not had access to care who've really been in very unfortunate situations from a mental health perspective."
The bills still has to head to the Senate — and experts say they're unlikely to reach the 60 votes needed to pass. Plus, there will be public comment periods of 30 to 60 days before the HHS rules are enacted. But the measures are already causing alarm. Transgender rights activist Vanessa Ford, the mother to a trans child, told Katie Couric Media, "As I watched the votes roll in last night, my body trembled with fear." She and her daughter are "terrified that we, or her doctors, could be arrested simply for providing her with the life-saving, evidence-based care she needs."
"You don't need to understand gender affirming care for transgender youth to agree that the government shouldn't make medical decisions for families," Ford said. "These complex belong to families and medical professionals, not politicians." She continued, "How are we surviving this? Not well. But we have a fire that won’t go out, fueled by the joy we see in our daughter and others like her."
