HHS Releases Peer-Reviewed Report Discrediting Pediatric Sex-Rejecting Procedures

WASHINGTON, NOV. 19, 2025 — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today published Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices, its peer-reviewed study of the medical dangers posed to children from attempts to change their biological sex.

The report, released through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, finds that the harms from sex-rejecting procedures — including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical operations — are significant, long term, and too often ignored or inadequately tracked. These conclusions confirm President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again Commission’s findings that unnecessary procedures and long-term health risks such as infertility are the byproduct of the overmedicalization of children.

“The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics peddled the lie that chemical and surgical sex-rejecting procedures could be good for children,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “They betrayed their oath to first do no harm, and their so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people. That is not medicine — it’s malpractice.”

 “This report marks a turning point for American medicine,” said National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD. “The evidence in it meticulously documents the risks the profession has imposed on vulnerable children. At the NIH, we are committed to ensuring that science, not ideology, guides America’s medical research.” 

“What are we going to tell the young people who can’t have children because the medical profession stole that from them?” said Assistant Secretary for Health Brian Christine, MD. “Our report is an urgent wake up call to doctors and parents about the clear dangers of trying to turn girls into boys and vice-versa.”

Before submitting its report for peer review, HHS commissioned the most comprehensive study to date of the scientific evidence and clinical practices surrounding the treatment of children and adolescents for “gender dysphoria.” The authors were drawn from disciplines and professional backgrounds spanning medicine, bioethics, psychology, and philosophy.

• Evgenia Abbruzzese, Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine
• Alex Byrne, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Farr Curlin, MD, Duke University
• Moti Gorin, PhD, MBE, Colorado State University
• Kristopher Kaliebe, MD, DFAACAP, University of South Florida
• Michael K. Laidlaw, MD, Michael K. Laidlaw MD, Inc.
• Kathleen McDeavitt, MD, Baylor College of Medicine
• Leor Sapir, PhD, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
• Yuan Zhang, PhD, Evidence Bridge

HHS invited the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society to contribute their evidence to this report. Both organizations declined to participate.