By Joshua Arnold

Effective August 30, Children’s National Hospital (CNH) in Washington, D.C. will no longer provide puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors, the hospital announced Friday. A statement on the webpage for its Gender and Autism Program cites “escalating legal and regulatory risks” as the reasons for “discontinuing” the prescription of gender transition hormones to minors.

The regulatory risk CNH fears is tied directly to the Trump administration’s efforts to push back the encroachment of transgender ideology in federal policy. An unnamed administration official said last week that HHS plans to begin the formal rule-making process to prevent federal funds from subsidizing gender transition procedures for minors through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The officials said the rule was in “the final stage of review” in the White House.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice subpoenaed nearly 20 doctors and hospitals over their practice of providing gender transition procedures to minors. While it’s unclear if CNH was among the subpoenaed institutions, the fact that the DOJ is actively investigating such practices presents the possibility of federal investigation. Even if CNH is not being investigated, they might be next.

Earlier this year, President Trump signed an executive order “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” which directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to cut off funding for any health care facility that continued such procedures on minors. At the time, CNH was among the hospitals that complied, at least until a federal judge put that executive order on hold.

According to The Washington Post, which broke the story, CNH’s decision is blameworthy — or at least lamentable — because it means they are “leaving families reeling” — by which, of course, they only comprehend those families that wish their child to continue accessing hormones contrary to their biological sex. That editorial dramatization overlooks the fact that CNH’s five-week notice gives those families plenty of time to refill prescriptions or find another supplier — in Maryland, Philadelphia, or even a daytrip to New York City.

In choosing this framing, The Washington Post ignored half the story: families were already reeling from CNH’s practice of providing gender transition procedures to minors. In fact, CNH staff sometimes pushed minors toward gender transition procedures. In one instance, they schemed to wrestle custody of an autistic teen away from his Christian parents, refusing to properly address the boy’s other mental health issues and placing him in foster care through bad-faith dealings.

With a little journalistic curiosity, The Washington Post might have stumbled upon this side of the story. When CNH cited “escalating legal and regulatory risks,” the regulatory risks clearly refer to actions taken by the Trump administration, but what of the legal risks? As it turns out, the family of this unfortunate teen (“John Doe III”) filed a $1 billion medical malpractice lawsuit against CNH staff in July 2024 — a move that certainly creates “escalating legal … risks” to the hospital’s ongoing provision of gender transition procedures for minors.

As TWS covered last year, the “Doe” family had ample reason to sue CNH. They voluntarily brought their son — who evidenced no desire to change his gender — to the hospital after an incident of self-harm. By the next day, hospital staff were referring to their son by a female name. The staff refused to release him after a three-day observation, refused to transfer him to another hospital for a second opinion, and filed bogus complaints — ultimately disproven — against both the family and their therapist. CNH staff then intervened with the boy’s foster placement, and he moved in with the hospital’s transgender-identifying chaplain.

Somehow, The Washington Post never showed interest in covering the sensational story.

Even as American children’s hospitals dove headfirst into the uncharted shoals of gender transitions for minors, CNH has stood out for its particularly predatory practice of targeting autistic children, an unusually vulnerable group. A government-funded study published in April 2024 called CNH’s Gender and Autism Program “a novel clinical service model for gender-diverse/transgender autistic youth.” That’s an academic way of saying that CNH connected autism and transgender identity in a way no other hospital had done. Now, their unapologetic gender crusade has landed the hospital in unnecessary legal jeopardy.

“Since 2021, the John Doe II family from Prince George’s County, Md., has resisted this hospital’s coercion and abuses — and the hospital has only doubled down on the unauthorized conduct toward their boy,” the Doe family’s lawyer, Amos Jones, told TWS. “While they are glad to hear that the unsafe, unscientific, and destructive experiments on our children will no longer take place, August 30 is too late.”

Although The Post claimed CNH’s announcement left families reeling, the closest they came to quoting one of the reeling families was “the mother of a college student who received gender-transition care at Children’s starting in 2018” — in other words, a relative of a former minor patient who is not affected by CNH’s decision at all. Perhaps that’s because many parents have awoken to the mountain of evidence against transitioning minors.

In any event, this mother’s comments perfectly encapsulated the transgender ideology, which dethrones objective reality and elevates internal emotions as the final arbiter of meaning. “I don’t believe that they would have had to close,” she huffed. “I believe they’re choosing not to stand up and fight. … This decision is really disgusting.”

Everyone has an equal right to express their opinion, but that does not make all opinions equally right. God made each person in his image as male or female — a distinction encoded into our very DNA. Real fulfillment and flourishing are found only in living according to God’s design.

Perhaps CNH made its decision because their bluff had finally been called. Perhaps they knew all along that their position, if profitable, was scientifically and morally indefensible — because boys cannot become girls, and indulging any delusions to the contrary does not make gender-confused boys and girls feel better about their bodies. Perhaps, like the king in Jesus’s parable, they deliberated about their poor position and chose to surrender rather than fight a pointless losing battle (Luke 14:31-32).

The CNH decision to discontinue gender transition procedures for minors illustrates how sharply American public sentiment has veered away from the false mirage of transgender ideology toward the true oasis of transcendent reality. While it’s refreshing to find the fragrant aroma of truth wafting on the cultural winds, those ever-shifting winds can easily reverse their flow.

Therefore, it’s encouraging to see the Trump administration act to solidify this moment of cultural clarity by working to separate federal funding from gender transition procedures, and it’s encouraging to see that hospitals have no stomach for a fight.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.