The Trump administration has taken steps to severely curtail access to gender-affirming care for minors
Health officials announced a series of measures on Thursday that seek to restrict access to gender-affirming health care for young transgender people in the US.
A protester with face painting of the trans flag during the Rise Up for Trans Youth rally against President Donald Trump’s executive actions targeting transgender people in New York City on February 7, 2025.
Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Trump administration on Thursday announced sweeping measures to restrict gender-affirming health care for US minors.
Among them, the administration plans to withhold federal funds that could be used to provide gender-affirming care for minors from hospitals and health care providers, despite substantial evidence that such care is safe and effective. The effort could severely restrict access to gender-affirming care for young transgender people across the US, including in states with already established legal protections.
“This morning, I signed a declaration: The gender-queering procedure is neither safe nor an effective treatment for children with gender dysphoria,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at a press event Thursday to announce the new rules.
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Health care providers have criticized these measures as “disappointing” and against medical evidence.
“It’s sad, it’s disappointing,” says Johanna Oviedo, an obstetrician based in New York City who works with Physicians for Reproductive Health. “Everyone has a right to evidence-based health care, and that’s just what we do. We provide evidence-based health care. That’s why providers and all major medical organizations agree that gender-affirming care is evidence-based; it’s lifesaving, and it’s essential.”
Today’s proposal is “probably the scariest moment” in a broader campaign to stigmatize transgender people, says Meredith McNamara, an adolescent medicine expert and assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine. “This cannot be allowed to proceed further.”
The announcement, held at HHS’s headquarters in the Hubert H. Humphrey Building in Washington, DC, was delivered before an audience that included conservative activists and politicians, many of whom were recognized in Kennedy’s opening remarks.
New proposed rules target hospitals and providers that receive federal funding through government health insurance programs Medicare and MedicaidThat includes almost all hospitals, Oviedo says. Facilities that provide gender-affirming care to children and teens would no longer receive that funding under the proposals. They would prohibit the use of federal dollars under Children’s Health Insurance Program Providing gender-affirming care. Officials estimated Thursday that about $30 million in federal funds will be spent toward gender-affirming care in 2023.
The Food and Drug Administration is also issuing letters to manufacturers of breast binders, Kennedy said at the press event. And the proposal could impact people with disabilities by undoing the Biden administration’s move to classify gender dysphoria as a disability. Additionally, according to Kennedy, the administration is issuing a warning to health care providers and other stakeholders that puberty blockers and other medical interventions that fall under gender-affirming care are not supported by evidence.
“These policies and proposals misrepresent the current medical consensus and fail to reflect the realities of pediatric care and the needs of children and families,” Susan Cressley, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, wrote in an article. statement In response to the announcement. “We call on HHS to immediately change course and rescind these harmful proposals.”
Gender-affirming care can include medical, mental health, and social care that enables people to align their physical and social characteristics with their internal gender identity. This may include other interventions ranging from counseling to puberty blockers to hormones and, in some rare cases, surgery. Several studies have shown that youth who have access to gender-affirming care have better mental and emotional health outcomes than those without access, while blocking access to care leads to poorer mental health, including increased risk of suicide.
“Gender-affirming care is, in many aspects, lifesaving,” says Oviedo, who provides such care. “There’s a lot of evidence that shows it reduces anxiety and depression in our patients. We also have to trust our patients and their families. And I think they should be allowed to live their authentic lives and not have the government interfere with that.”
The move is the latest effort by the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers to target transgender people: It comes just a day after the US House of Representatives passed a bill. Criminalize sex change treatment for minorsWhich is not likely to be passed by the Senate. Earlier this year Kennedy released a report that attacked and debunked gender-affirming care. medical consent Specialists in transgender care. And President Donald Trump has issued several executive orders Deny the existence of transgender people And their goal is to restrict their access to care participation in sportsTrans people were also banned from serving in the military in July, and the State Department has mandated Americans to list the sex they were assigned at birth on their passports, regardless of their gender identity,
New rules will almost certainly be challenged in courtSeveral advocacy organizations have vowed to fight the measures. There will be a 60 to 90-day period in which experts and the public can provide comments to HHS before the agency issues a final decision. The comment period on the proposal to remove the classification of gender dysphoria as a disability will be 30 days.
McNamara says, “This is a historic moment for the scientific community to strongly condemn the lies in everything produced by HHS during the Trump administration regarding trans health.” “We have to be relentless about how we continue to present the truth about this care – how beneficial it is, how important it is, how non-negotiable it is.”
Additional reporting by Tanya Lewis.
Editor’s note (12/18/25): This article was edited after posting to include more information about the press event and the proposed new rules, comments from Meredith McNamara and a statement from Susan Cressley.
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