RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz announce moves to ban gender-affirming care for young people
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz (right) will announce new restrictions to gender-affirming care for minors Thursday.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
Health officials from the Trump administration announced several moves Thursday that will have the effect of essentially banning gender-affirming care for transgender young people, even in states where it is still legal.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads Medicaid and Medicare, announced the measures in a press conference at the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C.
“So-called gender affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people,” Kennedy said. “This is not medicine. It is malpractice.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics pushed back strongly against HHS’s actions.
“These policies and proposals misconstrue the current medical consensus and fail to reflect the realities of pediatric care and the needs of children and families,” said AAP President Dr. Susan J. Kressly.
New rules
The ban takes the form of two new proposed rules from Medicaid and Medicare. The first prohibits doctors and hospitals from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursement for gender-affirming care provided to transgender patients younger than age 18. Medicaid is the health care program that covers low-income Americans.
The second rule blocks all Medicaid and Medicare funding for any services at hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care. Virtually every hospital in the country takes Medicare, which covers older Americans and the disabled. Because hospitals rely on Medicare, the rule would have a wide-ranging effect.
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Trump pushes an end to medical care for transgender youth nationally
Supporters and opponents of transgender rights agree that, taken together, the forthcoming hospital rules could make access to pediatric gender-affirming care across the country extremely difficult, if not impossible.
The care is already banned in 27 states. The proposed rules will be entered into the Federal Register on Friday and that starts a 60-day comment period. The rules would not take effect immediately.
The American Civil Liberties Union has announced plans to sue to stop the rules; other legal action is also expected.
“These rules are a baseless intrusion into the patient-physician relationship,” the AAP’s Kressly said. “Patients, their families, and their physicians—not politicians or government officials —should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them.”
Kennedy and others at the press conference insisted that AAP and others — including transgender people themselves — are wrong.
“There is no such thing as being transgender,” said activist Chloe Cole, who uses her experience of transitioning as a young person and regretting it to advocate for government restrictions on this care.
Cole continued, “To the young people out there who are struggling with this mental illness, I want you to know, it’s not too late to accept the beautiful way that God has created you.”
Other actions to restrict care
The pivot to the topic of transgender minors comes one day after Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a package of health care bills that do not extend subsidies for people who buy health insurance in Affordable Care Act plans.
Kressly, of the pediatrics academy, said that the new measures do nothing to bring down health care costs and instead, “unfairly stigmatize a population of young people.”
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The legislative package Congress considered this week included a bill, introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., that makes it a crime to provide gender-affirming care to transgender minors, punishable by a fine or prison time of up to 10 years. It passed on Wednesday.
Another bill, passed Thursday, was introduced by Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas. It would prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for gender-affirming care for youth. Both bills would also have to pass the Senate to become law.
At Thursday’s press conference, Dr. Marty Makary, who heads the Food and Drug Administration, announced that the FDA would be sending warning letters to businesses that manufacture chest binders and advertise them to young people.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who leads the National Institutes of Health, talked about grants rescinded earlier this year on research affecting transgender young people.
Since Day 1
The actions are consistent with steps President Trump has taken since his first day in office. On Day 1, he signed an executive order declaring that the United States “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.”
Since then there have been other measures including:
- HHS released a report critical of the research that supports access to this care.
- A federal suicide prevention lifeline specifically for transgender youth was canceled, as were hundreds of millions of dollars in scientific research funding related to LGBTQ health.
- Federal health officials warned state Medicaid directors to tread carefully, and the Department of Justice announced subpoenas of some children’s hospitals and threatened providers with prosecution.
One family reacts
For one mom of a transgender teen in California, the rules and bills released this week are concerning. She asked that NPR not name her or her child because she fears she could lose her job or risk her family’s safety by speaking about their experiences.
“It feels like we’re being hunted,” she says.
She describes her own process of learning about the options for gender-affirming care for her teenager and concluding that the benefits outweighed the risks. “If we can’t stop the government from legislating what health care families can receive in consultation with their doctors, then I don’t recognize this America,” she says.
Policy-ish
Her state bans gender-affirming care for teenagers. So she travels 450 miles for it
Her son is 15-years-old and has been taking testosterone for about 6 months. He is a scout, he runs cross-country, and wants to work in a math or science field. His friends know he is transgender but not everyone at his high school does.
“I kind want to make it clear — I came out to my parents and said that I wanted to start [hormone therapy] and it took them a long time to be OK with that,” he says. “We went to a lot of therapy. We had a lot of discussions. My parents — they were scared for me to start it.” He says both he and his parents researched it: “It wasn’t just like a whim.”
He says starting hormone therapy brings to mind a hiking metaphor: “I was like, ‘Oh, this is the path that’s going to take me to where I want.’ I feel like my body is going in the right direction.”
The changes the Trump administration and Congress are doing worry him. “It feels like someone’s throwing me into the bush just off the path I’m on,” he says. “And that’s kind of terrifying. I don’t want to be lost. I want to keep going where I’m going.”
Trump moves to ban transgender care for minors by targeting hospitals
(CNN) — Trump administration health officials announced Thursday that the federal government will block transgender care to children by targeting hospitals and doctors that provide it.
Posted 12:27 a.m. Dec 19
– Updated 1:51 a.m. Dec 19
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks about new moves to block transgender care for minors on Thursday. (Pool via CNN Newsource)
By Jamie Gumbrecht
, Sarah Owermohle, CNN
(CNN) — Trump administration health officials announced Thursday that the federal government will block transgender care to children by targeting hospitals and doctors that provide it.
New proposed rules would prohibit hospitals from participating in Medicare and Medicaid if they provide care such as puberty blockers and surgeries for transgender minors, and would prevent federal coverage of such treatments.
“These procedures fail to meet professionally recognized standards of care,” US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said calling many types of transgender care “malpractice.” “Medical professionals or entities providing sex-rejecting procedures to children are out of compliance with these standards of health care.”
Medical groups denounced the announcements, saying they intrude on physician-patient relationships and jeopardize care for everyone.
“Allowing the government to determine which patient groups deserve care sets a dangerous precedent, and children and families will bear the consequences,” said Dr. Susan Kressly, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“Patients, their families, and their physicians—not politicians or government officials —should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them. The government’s actions today make that task harder, if not impossible, for families of gender-diverse and transgender youth.”
It’s the latest in a string of actions by President Donald Trump’s administration that target transgender people, including eliminating mention of trans people on federal websites, halting data collection on health issues, removing trans people from the military and suing states that allow trans athletes to play on high school sports teams.
Also on Thursdsay, US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary also said the agency is sending warning letters to 12 makers and sellers of breast binders who marketed or sold the devices for treatment of gender dysphoria in children.
National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya also said the research agency will end support for research into gender transition, saying, “it was junk science to begin with.”
HHS leaders on Thursday cited their own review of evidence and reports from other countries, many of which have faced sharp criticism for drawing sweeping conclusions with little or poor evidence.
Health officials said Thursday they expect to emphasize psychosocial assessment and support for transgender youth, including “compassionate, developmentally appropriate counseling.” But they acknowledged there are a limited number of mental health care providers available.
Gender identity care, which is sometimes called gender-affirming care, is a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender – the one a clinician assigned them at birth, based mostly on anatomic characteristics – to the gender by which they identify. It can include mental health care or age-appropriate medical care such as hormone treatments, puberty blockers, gynecologic and urologic care and reproductive treatments.
Major mainstream medical associations – including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the Endocrine Society, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry – have supported such care and agree that it’s the gold standard of clinically appropriate care that can provide lifesaving treatment for children and adults. Professional medical organizations do not recommend surgery for children as a part of care, and research shows that it’s rare among transgender or gender-diverse teens.
The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that it will challenge the administration’s rules in court.
“These gratuitous proposals are cruel and unconstitutional attacks on the rights of transgender youth and their families,” Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Rights Project, said in a statement.
Kennedy said Thursday that the administration is confident it’s approach will pass court challenges.
“If people sue us, they’re welcome to,” he said.
The HHS announcement came just after the House passed a bill that could imprison health care providers for providing trans care for minors. The bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, could imprison doctors who provide care such as surgeries or puberty blockers for up to 10 years. It’s unclear whether the GOP-led Senate will take up the measure, though it is unlikely it would get enough Democratic support to pass out of that chamber.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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