#gender-affirming-care

#gender-affirming-care

Last summer, the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court ruled that it isn't discriminatory to discriminate against trans youth. But HHS has the ability to take that bigoted opinion even further by barring institutions from providing gender-affirming care as a condition of their participation in Medicare and Medicaid. The same condition would apply to Children's Health Insurance Program funding. In other words, these proposed rules would affect nearly all, if not all, hospitals.

After considering arguments made by both sides, San Diego Superior Court Judge Matthew Braner decided Wednesday that there was little risk in continuing the temporary restraining order he issued last week that required Rady Children's Health to resume all gender-affirming care, except for surgeries, until an upcoming hearing on March 10.

As the shaky evidence base for youth gender medicine has become better known, activists have retreated to an argument from authority. Never mind the Cass Report, whose findings resulted in the closure of Britain's leading youth gender clinic. Never mind the study by a leading American practitioner showing that the treatments she championed did not improve minors' mental health. Never mind reports that some adolescents were being put on a medical pathway after only a single clinic visit. For advocates, the important thing to remember was that "gender-affirming care" for minors-puberty blockers and hormones, plus surgery in rare cases-was endorsed by all of the major American medical associations.

Administration health officials praised a statement released Tuesday by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) that advises against conducting "gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery" on people under the age of 19, even though such procedures are rarely conducted on minors. The ASPS based its statement on two recent reports from the U.K. and the U.S. that were widely criticized by transgender healthcare advocates as being biased.

The funding - supporting hospital clinics, HIV/AIDS programs, educational institutions, and more - would be conditioned on sweeping new restrictions barring "social transition" and gender-affirming care at any age, including therapy and counseling. While the administration has already frozen large portions of foreign aid, this rule would formalize those efforts and dramatically expand their reach, with potentially severe consequences for transgender people worldwide as the administration escalates its campaign against transgender lives both at home and abroad.

The bills are strikingly clean,

"Taken together, these developments affect our role and responsibilities as a provider participating in federal programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, which are essential to caring for children and families in our communities," Rady said, confirming that its decision also pertains to operations in Orange County.

"This is not a case about whether AAP or HHS is right or even has the better position on vaccinations and gender-affirming care for children, or any other public health policy," Howell wrote in her decision. "This is a case about whether the federal government has exercised power in a manner designed to chill public health policy debate by retaliating against a leading and generally trusted pediatrician member professional organization focused on improving the health of children," the judge continued.

Research set to be published in the Journal of Paediatric's February volume has once again proved that trans adolescents show "meaningful reductions" in depression and anxiety after beginning clinically-endorsed hormone therapy. Co-written by paediatricians in Nevada, Texas, and Missouri, the study examined the wellbeing of 432 patients before and after undergoing treatment. The participants, aged 12 to 20, were surveyed on their mental health before and at least 364 days after beginning appropriate medical treatment such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

Health and Human Services (HHS) General Counsel Mike Stuart has referred three children's hospitals to the agency's inspector general's office: Seattle Children's Hospital, Children's Hospital Colorado, and Children's Minnesota. Gender-affirming care for trans youth is legal in all three states. But HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last month announced that medical practitioners who provide gender-affirming care to minors are out of compliance with federal health care standards. Now, the agency is enforcing that declaration.

Related: Federal HR office sets deadline for government-wide purge of transgender and nonbinary inclusion OPM sent a letter to insurance carriers last year saying that as of 2026, "chemical and surgical modification of an individual's sex traits through medical interventions (to include 'gender transition"' services) will no longer be covered under the FEHB or PSHB Programs. There is a narrow exception for people who are mid-treatment.

Last August, the administration notified the insurance companies covering federal workers and their families that as of Jan. 1, 2026 it would no longer cover "chemical and surgical modification of an individual's sex traits through medical interventions." However, the administration did say it would pay for counseling, include by "those who provide faith-based counseling."

➡️ NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani isn't letting Elon Musk slander his nominee for commissioner of the Fire Department of New York as she makes history as the first gay person chosen for the role. Meanwhile, gay MAGA Republican Richard Grenell is throwing a fit over a musician cancelling his Christmas Eve performance after Trump renamed the Kennedy Center after himself, and a hospital in Seattle is RFK Jr's latest target over gender-affirming care.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has identified his first target following his declaration earlier this month to cut off Medicaid and Medicare funding to any hospital that provides health care to trans youth. Last Friday in a social media post, HHS announced that it was referring Seattle Children's Hospital for investigation for providing gender-affirming care to trans youth. Of course, Kennedy's declaration was simply that-a declaration with no basis in science.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oregon, claims that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. exceeded his authority with the Dec. 18 declaration, which would "effectively ban, by fiat, an entire caregory of healthcare." It also failed to follow proper procedures for promulgating new rules, would interfere with states' rights to run their Medicaid programs and regulate health care and deny care to youth that need it.