By Amber Duke
We’re celebrating a major cultural and political victory today, related to something that I’ve been investigating since March.
BAD MEDICINE
Multiple major hospitals that were providing sex changes to minors recently announced that they are stopping the “treatments” due to pressure from the Trump administration.
Stanford Medicine paused surgical procedures, including puberty blocker implants, for patients under the age of 19, and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles shuttered its transgender youth clinic entirely, according to the New York Times. UChicago Medicine and Rush University System for Health similarly said last week they were no longer providing pediatric transgender medicine. Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. announced it was no longer prescribing blockers or hormones starting August 30, and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center will provide no transgender treatments for individuals under the age of 19.
President Trump signed an executive order shortly after taking office on Jan. 28 directing the government to pull federal funding from hospitals that offer puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or sex change surgeries to children suffering from gender dysphoria.
Despite the complete lack of scientific evidence that medical intervention improves outcomes for children with gender dysphoria — in fact, a majority-liberal group of researchers developed a review for Trump’s Department of Human Health and Services (HHS) in May that found “very weak evidence” for “gender-affirming care” — it became standard practice among medical associations and major hospitals to chemically castrate or mutilate minors.
Despite Trump’s executive order, it took a long time for hospitals to get on board. I found during a March investigation that many were still quietly offering puberty blockers, hormones, and even surgeries for minors. Stanford and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles both told me over the phone, while I pretended to make an appointment for my “transgender daughter,” that they would still be able to help my hypothetical child to transition.
Curiously, Children’s National in DC told me at the time that they were not currently offering hormone therapies, including refills of existing prescriptions because of Trump’s order.
“We are able to, of course, continue to provide behavioral health resources to your family to help deal with some of those big emotions that you’re experiencing in these big changes,” a representative said. “I think, as a whole, hospitals are afraid of providers losing their licenses if they continue to do it under the executive order so … it’s the best guidance for the time being.”
I wonder if they ended the pause at some point after I called and now are implementing it again starting August 30.
The Trump administration became aware that some hospitals were ignoring the order. On May 28, Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator, gave hospitals a 30-day deadline to comply or face funding cuts. I tried my best to get my investigation to the administration as a helpful list for them to work from. On June 30, the admin gave its final warning to hospitals still not complying. Some, obviously, have taken the hint.
While it’s great news that more hospitals are banning transgender medical interventions for children, how sad is it that they would only do it under the threat of political force?
As health and science reporter Benjamin Ryan noted, medical authorities in “UK, Sweden, Finland, and now Norway as well,” have recommended against “prescribing puberty blockers and hormones to trans-identifying minors.” Yet, in America, gender clinics are giving teenagers double mastectomies and other sex-change operations in many states. The Biden administration promoted puberty blockers, even though the FDA said puberty blockers can cause brain swelling and permanent vision loss.
Even researchers who back “gender-affirming care” have admitted that it increases rather than reduces the risk of suicide. An FDA official who supported giving minors puberty blockers conceded that they actually increase suicidality. Indeed, the “FDA knew ‘gender affirming’ puberty blockers increase ‘suicidality’ in 2017,” reported Just the News.
The nation’s leading transgender lawyer defending gender transitions for minors — the ACLU’s Chase Strangio — conceded to the Supreme Court that “there is no evidence…that this treatment reduces completed suicide.” A 2024 study in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science found that sex changes massively increase suicide risks, rather than reducing them.
