By S.A. McCarthy

After four years of transgender activism from Joe Biden’s White House, President Donald Trump and his administration are moving to further shield children from harmful gender transition procedures. On Thursday, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced new rules that would bar hospitals that carry out gender transition surgeries on minors from receiving Medicaid and Medicare funding.

In a press release, HHS described gender transition procedures as “sex-rejecting procedures … that expose young people to irreversible harm.” The agency clarified, “These procedures include pharmaceutical or surgical interventions of specified types that attempt to align a child’s physical appearance or body with an asserted identity different from their sex.” The new rules would ensure that hospitals cannot commit gender transition procedures against children as a prerequisite to participating in Medicaid or Medicare programs.

“Nearly all U.S. hospitals participate in Medicare and Medicaid and this action is designed to ensure that the U.S. government will not be in business with organizations that intentionally or unintentionally inflict permanent harm on children,” the HHS press release declared. “Sex-rejecting procedures on children — which include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical operations — expose them to irreversible damage, including infertility, impaired sexual function, diminished bone density, altered brain development, and other irreversible physiological effects.”

“Under my leadership, and answering President Trump’s call to action, the federal government will do everything in its power to stop unsafe, irreversible practices that put our children at risk,” Kennedy said in a statement. “This Administration will protect America’s most vulnerable. Our children deserve better — and we are delivering on that promise.” HHS will also bar Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funds from covering gender transition procedures for minors.

In a press conference announcing the proposed new rule, Kennedy said, “Doctors assume a solemn obligation to protect children. Yet doctors across the country now provide needless and irreversible sex rejecting procedures that violate their sacred Hippocratic Oath by endangering the very lives that they are sworn to safeguard.” He charged that professional organizations like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics promoted flawed, unsound, and ideologically-motivated research and “peddled the lie that chemical and surgical sex-rejecting procedures could be good for children who suffer from gender dysphoria.”

Kennedy also contended that the organizations “betrayed the estimated 300,000 American youth, ages 13 to 17, conditioned to believe that sex can be changed. They betrayed their Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. So-called gender affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people.”

“This is not medicine. It is malpractice. We’re done with junk science driven by ideological pursuits, not the well-being of children,” Kennedy declared. He touted an HHS report released one month ago that found that gender transition procedures for children were based on “very low-quality evidence” and caused “extensive” harm to children. “So today, we are taking six decisive actions guided by gold-standard science and the week-one executive order from President Trump to protect children from chemical and surgical mutilation,” he announced.

Kennedy also signed a formal declaration clarifying that gender transition procedures for minors “do not meet professionally recognized standards of health care,” which could potentially open the door to legal or professional measures against hospitals carrying out gender transition procedures on children. The Health secretary confirmed, “Sex-rejecting procedures are neither safe nor effective treatment for children with gender dysphoria.”

HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill also spoke at the press conference, simply stating, “Men are men. Men can never become women. Women are women. Women can never become men. Children are innocent and they need our protection.” His remarks were met with applause from those in attendance.

In addition to the new rules surrounding Medicaid and Medicare funding, HHS is also warning the manufacturers of “breast binders” marketed to children that they are committing “significant regulatory violations and how they should take prompt corrective action,” terminating grants that funds “transgender” research involving minors, and undoing a Biden-era policy which would have officially classified gender dysphoria as a medical disability, therefore barring hospitals and health care practitioners from committing gender transition procedures under nondiscrimination statutes.

“The Biden administration abused a law that was never intended to require health care providers or health programs to support transgender surgeries for minors,” O'Neill said. “Our rule would restore regulatory clarity and ensure that organizations receiving federal funds can set evidence-based policies without fear of violating federal civil rights requirements.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Joy Stockbauer, policy analyst at Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, said, “I applaud this move to protect the vulnerable from these twisted gender transition procedures. It’s difficult enough to be a young person in the digital age without being targeted by life-altering procedures that prey on one’s greatest insecurities and confusions.” She added, “Let’s let kids be kids again, free from the agendas and pressures of sick adults — and let’s encourage young people to see themselves as they really are, as image bearers of the God of the universe.”

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.