The Trump administration announced Thursday that it will take steps to end transition‑related care for minors nationwide. A department official told reporters that the new measures will “ensure that the federal government in no way funds directly gender transition procedures on minors and also does not fund facilities that perform these procedures.” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other officials are set to detail the moves later that day.
Federal Rules Targeting Meds and Surgery
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will begin a rule‑making process that would prohibit hospitals from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries to minors as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid. The rules will also bar Medicaid funding from being used for such care. The proposed CMS rules will be finalized after a 60‑day comment period, the department official said.
FDA Warning Letters to Breast Binder Makers
HHS also announced that the Food and Drug Administration will issue warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers of breast binders for minors used to treat gender dysphoria. The letters allege that the companies are engaging in illegal marketing. The move follows the agency’s earlier review in May, which declared that the quality of evidence regarding the effects of gender‑affirming care for minors “is very low.”
Revising Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
The Office for Civil Rights proposed a revision to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits discrimination in federally funded programs. The clarification would exclude gender dysphoria that does not result from physical impairments from the definition of “disability.” The HHS official said the change was intended to “resolve an ambiguity” that the Biden administration introduced in the preamble of Section 504 in 2024, which suggested that gender dysphoria might qualify as a disability.
Context: Executive Orders and State Laws
In the first weeks of his second term, President Donald Trump issued multiple executive orders targeting trans people, including an order declaring that there are only two unchangeable sexes and another barring federal funding from hospitals that provide transition‑related care to minors. Over the past few years, 27 states have enacted measures prohibiting access to certain transition‑related treatments for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Families who could afford it began traveling to the remaining states where care remained legal.
Hospital Rollbacks and Federal Investigation
In July, the federal government began investigating providers across the country, resulting in more than 20 hospitals—including those in liberal cities such as Los Angeles and Boston—rolling back or ending their gender‑affirming care programs for minors and some young adults. The crackdown has pushed some trans adults and families with trans children, such as the Gonzales family, to leave the country.
Impact on Families
Rachel Gonzales said, “Living in Texas, we became targets of politicians who have boldly rejected the consensus of medical experts and decided that they know better than Libby, my husband and I, and our team of physicians and have opted to use us as their political targets, instead of allowing us the parental rights that they so claim to advocate for.” Gonzales’s three children are fifth‑generation Texans. Due to the federal government’s actions, she and her husband moved Libby, who is now 15, and their other two children out of the United States to a country Gonzales declined to disclose.
Congressional Actions
Just a day before the HHS announcement, the House passed a bill that would charge doctors with a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison if they provide gender‑affirming care for minors. The legislation, introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R‑Ga., is expected to die in the Senate but marks the harshest federal penalty for doctors providing transition‑related care to minors ever passed by the House. Greene called the bill’s passage “a win for children all over America,” in a post on X on Wednesday.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R‑Texas, introduced another bill the House will vote on Thursday that would prohibit Medicaid from covering gender transition procedures for anyone under the age of 18.
Key Takeaways
- The Trump administration will prohibit federal funding for transition‑related care for minors, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries.
- The FDA will issue warning letters to 12 breast‑binder manufacturers for illegal marketing to minors.
- Congressional bills now threaten felony charges for doctors and will bar Medicaid coverage for under‑18 transition procedures.
The move marks the latest effort from the Trump administration to restrict access to transgender care for both minors and adults, adding to a growing list of restrictive policies at the state and federal levels.
