HHS to Limit Youth Gender Transition Care from Hospitals

The Trump administration is moving to broadly curtail gender transition care for young people, proposing Thursday to eject medical providers from major federal health insurance programs if they provide services including hormone therapy, puberty blockers or procedures such as mastectomies to children and teenagers.

If finalized, the rules could result in a wide-scale contraction of the availability of transition services for children. As the single largest payer for health care in the United States, the federal government has enormous sway over hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices, which rely heavily on reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid. The proposed regulations would prevent those providers from receiving funding for any type of medical visit if they also offer youth transition care.

"We are done with 'junk science' driven by ideological pursuits, not [our opinions related to] the well-being of children," said Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said at a news conference that he signed a declaration Thursday confirming [the administration's beliefs] that "sex-rejecting procedures pose medical dangers of lasting harm on children who receive these interventions."

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