The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is moving ahead with plans to stop taxpayer dollars from funding gender-transition surgeries for minors.
A White House official told National Review in an exclusive report that the administration is in “the final stage of review for a new rule that would make it a condition of hospitals participating in Medicare or Medicaid that they not provide sex trait modifications to minors.”
This means that all hospitals that provide puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender-transition surgeries to minors would no longer have federal funds to do so.
“We are actively combing through all federal grants that go to the hospitals that still provide these procedures (surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers) to kids, and sorting through what funding could be cut without jeopardizing the health and safety of other patients and critical research needs,” an administration official told the outlet. “We are identifying what cuts can be made consistent with ongoing injunctions and what cuts can be made immediately after the injunction is lifted.”
As CBN News has reported, President Trump signed the “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” executive order in late January.
The order not only directed federally-run insurance programs like Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and TriCare to exclude funding for these procedures but also directed the HHS to issue regulations improving the health of minors with gender dysphoria without blatantly harming them.
“Our Nation will no longer fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support so-called ‘gender-affirming care,’ which has ruined far too many precious lives,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.
And while some children’s hospitals have pressed pause on gender-transition services for confused children, the new guidance by HHS could have drastic consequences for hospitals that don’t change their policies.
Several hospitals are facing audits and investigations over alleged failure to obtain informed consent from children seeking gender-altering procedures.
As CBN News reported, multiple people who have undergone these procedures as children and have since de-transitioned have said publicly that medical professionals failed to inform them and their families of the substantial health risks associated with taking puberty blockers and other hormones.
Chloe Cole, an outspoken detransitioner, says she was misled by transgender ideology and her medical team at the age of 15.
“I was approved for a double mastectomy, all by the age of 15,” she said in 2023. “Who here really believes I should have had my healthy breasts removed or that should have been an option?” she questioned. “How many more children’s bodies will be destroyed before you actually listen?”
An administration official confirmed to National Review that many others have felt “they were misled by providers and did not have an opportunity to give informed consent to these procedures.”
The official shared that HHS and other departments are also “reviewing specific instances of questionable billing for sex trait modifications, particularly in states which have already prohibited these procedures for minors — if a credible allegation of fraud is found, Medicaid funding can be cut off quickly and entirely.”
HHS’s upcoming rule changes would make good on the administration’s day-one priorities to protect some of the nation’s most vulnerable people – gender-confused minors.
In May, HHS denounced so-called “gender-affirming care,” saying those practices are “destructive” and therefore not an acceptable treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria.
In their review titled, “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” they analyzed the impact of treatments like puberty blockers, hormones, and gender-altering surgeries.
“Thousands of American children and adolescents have received these interventions,” the report states.
“Society has a special responsibility to safeguard the well-being of children. Given that the challenges faced by these patients intersect with deeply contested issues of moral and social significance—including social identity, sex and reproduction, bodily integrity, and sex-based norms of expression and behavior—the medical practices that have recently emerged to address their needs have become a focus of significant controversy,” it continues.
The report notes that these medical interventions on children carry “significant harms including infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications, and regret.”
Several other departments are taking an aggressive stance on cracking down on providers who either promote or financially benefit from gender-transition procedures for minors, National Review reports.
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