WTAS: HHS Acts to Bar Hospitals from Performing Sex-Rejecting Procedures on Children 

On December 18, 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a series of proposed regulatory actions to carry out President Trump’s Executive Order directing HHS to end the practice of sex-rejecting procedures on children that expose young people to irreversible harm. 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.

Headlines

Government Officials

Advocates & Organizations

Influencers

Headlines: 

• Washington Post: Op-ed by Dr. Mehmet Oz - What children in gender distress really need
• Fox News: HHS unleashes sweeping crackdown on child ‘sex-rejecting procedures,’ threatens hospital, Medicaid funding
• Fox News: Mehmet Oz declares 'America's children aren't lab mice' in crackdown on gender transition treatments
• Fox News: Detransitioner Chloe Cole shares complications after gender procedures: ‘I am grieving’
• The Washington Post: HHS to revoke funding from hospitals offering youth gender transition care
• PBS: Trump administration seeks to cut off access to transgender health care for U.S. children
• New York Post: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says HHS won’t fund ‘sex-rejecting procedures’ for minors: ‘It is malpractice’
• Newsweek: RFK Jr. Moves to Effectively Ban Gender-Affirming Care for Minors
• POLITICO: GOP, HHS Move to End Gender-Affirming Care for Kids
• Post Millennial:  BREAKING: HHS, RFK Jr move to block funds for hospitals that perform child sex changes nationwide
• Newsmax: HHS Moves to End Sex-Change Procedures for Minors
• The Epoch Times: Health Officials Move to Cut Funding for Transgender-Related Procedures for Children
• The Federalist:  HHS Moves To Defund Hospitals And States Pushing ‘Gender Transition’ On Children
• Washington Times: Trump administration seeks to ban funding for hospitals offering ‘sex-rejecting’ care for minors
• The Daily Signal: ‘MALPRACTICE:’ Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Announces 6 Moves to Crack Down on ‘Sex-Rejecting Procedures’
• National Review: HHS to Strip Funding from Hospitals Performing Sex-Reassignment Procedures on Children
• Breitbart: RFK Announces Actions Against Transgender Procedures on Children: ‘This Is Not Medicine; It Is Malpractice’
• Townhall: HHS Launches a Historic Federal Crackdown on 'Transgender' Surgeries for Kids
• Catholic News Agency: HHS Announces Actions to Restrict ‘Sex-Rejecting Procedures’ on Minors
• Outkick: Science Over Ideology: HHS Moves To Halt Pediatric Gender Transitions
• Christian Broadcasting Network: HHS Moves to Protect Kids from Gender Experiments: 'This Is Not Medicine, It Is Malpractice'
• The Christian Post: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces HHS crackdown on 'sex-rejecting' surgeries for minors: 'Malpractice'
• Catholic Vote: RFK moves to bar federal funding on ‘sex-rejecting procedures’ for children
• The Daily Citizen: HHS Will Block Hospitals From Performing Sex-Rejecting, Mutilating Procedures on Children
• San Francisco Chronicle: California braces for showdown as Trump administration targets gender-affirming care

Government Officials:

• Sen. Rand Paul via X: “Gender bending isn’t science. Thank you @SecKennedy for protecting our children.
• Sen. Tommy Tuberville via X: “Thank you, @SecKennedy, for PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN. “Gender affirming care” for minors is CHILD ABUSE.”
• Sen. Roger Marshall via X: “Thank you to the Trump Admin and @SecKennedy for protecting the health and well-being of our children.”
• Sen. Bill Cassidy via X: “Just left HHS, where it was announced federal tax dollars will NOT pay for sex-change surgeries for children. I've pushed for this in the Senate. It’s wrong, and it’s stopping now. Thank you, @POTUS & @SecKennedy!!”
• Sen. James Lankford via X: “Taxpayer funds should NOT be used in sex-rejecting surgeries. Great job @DrOzCMS”
• Sen. Marsha Blackburn via X: “These fearless leaders have fought tirelessly to protect innocent children from so-called ‘gender-affirming care,’ and today’s announcement gives me hope for the next generation. Thank you, @SecKennedy, for standing up for our kids and grandkids.”
• Sen. Marsha Blackburn via X: “No child should be pushed into irreversible chemical and surgical mutilation procedures. This is child abuse. It was an honor to join @SecKennedy and @ChloeCole at the Trump administration’s historic announcement today about their efforts to stop this barbaric practice.
• Rep. Randy Weber via X: “Thank you, @SecKennedy. Thank you. Our children deserve a better America. One that protects them, not damages them. Youth gender mutilations have harmed children, and history will not look kindly on it. Today, that chapter closes.”
• Rep. Rich McCormick via X: “This is common sense and mirrors my PROTECTS Act that prohibits the use of federal tax dollars on gender transition surgeries for minors. I am proud of @SecKennedy’s leadership on this issue. We must continue to protect our children from these irreversible, detrimental procedures.
• Rep. Mike Simpson via X: “This is necessary - thank you, @SecKennedy. The Left's insanity has misled thousands of children, and it must end. I am proud to cosponsor @RepBobOnder's bill to codify President Trump’s efforts to protect children from chemical and surgical mutilation.”
• Rep. Andy Harris via X: “So-called “gender-affirming care” has inflicted lasting harm on vulnerable children physically and psychologically. Good for @SecKennedy for taking action to do away with the reckless, radical, and ideologically driven “junk” science.”
• Rep. Robert Aderholt via X: “I’m grateful for @SecKennedy’s leadership and his decisive action to protect America’s children. Taxpayer dollars should never fund life-altering procedures that harm our most vulnerable.”
• Rep. Bob Onder via X: “It was an honor to witness the historic announcements made by @SecKennedy at @HHSGov today. We are committed to protecting our children and putting an end to the sex-rejecting procedures that harm them.
• Rep. Bob Onder via X: “Today, I attended @SecKennedy’s important announcement at @HHS. This administration is taking decisive action to end the practice of providing irreversible transgender surgeries and prescriptions to children.
• Rep. Bob Onder via Fox News: “The dark days of subjecting children like Chloe Cole to irreversible harm that they cannot consent to are over… Secretary Kennedy’s announcement today will protect children, their families, and the majority of doctors who want to uphold their promise to ‘do no harm’.  I thank President Trump and Secretary Kennedy for their leadership on this crucial issue.”
• Rep. Dan Crenshaw via X: “In addition to my bill’s passage on the House Floor—a huge win for kids and common sense—I joined @SecKennedy for a major announcement at @HHSGov: the federal government is finally taking aggressive action to stop irreversible gender transition procedures on children… No more junk science. No more activist medicine. No more hiding behind the lie that mutilating kids is somehow “healthcare.”
• Rep. Diana Harshbarger via X: “Great to join @SecKennedy at @HHSGov today for this historic announcement. @POTUS and his administration are taking action to protect children from these dangerous, life altering surgeries!”
• Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General: “Protecting American kids from dangerous, non-reversible medical interventions and the left-wing activists in the medical industry pushing these procedures demands a full government response. That’s why I’m standing with President Trump, Secretary Kennedy, and attorneys general from around the country to oppose radical gender ideology, safeguard taxpayer funds, and protect our kids.”
• Todd Rokita, Indiana Attorney General: “We must protect our kids and put an end to these irreversible and harmful experimental procedures that often lead to lifelong regret. We are blessed to have an administration in the White House fully committed to the same kind of commonsense values that prevail among everyday Hoosiers in Indiana.”
• Austin Knudsen, Montana Attorney General: “I commend the Trump Administration for taking action to protect children and keep taxpayers from bearing the cost of sex-rejecting procedures. I spent my first term as Attorney General combatting the Biden administration’s attempts to impose their radical gender ideology on Montanans. We’ve known from the beginning and science backs us up: the ‘gender-transition’ treatments pushed by the left are unsafe and not grounded in fact.”
• Kris Kobach, Kansas Attorney General: “As someone who has personally litigated this issue in court and has interviewed witnesses, I know just how dangerous these drugs can be. The complications are very serious, and oftentimes the people who take them are not made fully aware of those risks.”

Advocates & Organizations:

• Chloe Cole @ChloeCole: “Before today’s @HHSGov press conference on protecting children from transgenderism, I had the honor of meeting @RobertKennedyJr who has done an incredible job in fighting to keep America’s children healthy. On behalf of every child harmed by gender ideology — thank you!”
• Bishop Robert Barron @BishopBarron, Catholic Bishop of Diocese of Winona-Rochester: “I was so pleased to see Secretary Robert Kennedy’s announcement this morning that he is endeavoring to ban so-called gender re-assignment surgery and the use of puberty blockers that halt natural sexual development. The Catholic Church agrees with Secretary Kennedy that these procedures result in irreparable physical harm and typically increase the psychological distress of those who undergo them.”
• Independent Women @IWF: “HHS Bans Body-Mutilating Medical Procedures Targeting Gender-Confused Youth “No young person should ever again be subjected to irreversible interventions based on guesswork.” -@detransaqua”
• Independent Women’s Forum: “Independent Women stands firmly behind today’s decisive action by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to carry out President Trump’s executive order ending the surgical and chemical mutilation of minors—procedures that have exposed children to irreversible physical and psychological harm and have never been supported by credible long-term medical evidence or research. The proposed regulatory actions mark a long-overdue course correction in federal health policy.”
• Family Policy Alliance @family_policy: “Heroic leadership from ⁦@realDonaldTrump @RobertKennedyJc @ChloeCole to stand to #protectchildren from permanent disfigurement and genital mutilation… in America. As many as 300,000 victims are being identified who need Justice!”
• American Principles Project: “RFK Jr. announces moves to ban transgender drugs and surgeries for children. He cited the American Principles Project’s Gender Industrial Complex report, which exposes how powerful medical and pharmaceutical interests profit from pushing irreversible drugs and surgeries on minors. The report shows $4.4 BILLION in revenue in 2023—projected to reach $7.8 BILLION by 2030.”
• Radiance Foundation @lifehaspurpose: “Finally! It's way past time to punish this medical malpractice. Money always talks! Mutilating minors' perfectly healthy body parts is not medicine. It's barbarism. Reconcile the mind to the body, not the other way around.”
• Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman of Do No Harm via The Epoch Times: “This is just the beginning, but it marks a major step toward delivering a crippling blow to the child transgender industry…”
• Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman of Do No Harm via The Washington Times: “Many so-called gender clinics have already begun to close as the truth about the risks and long-term harms about these drugs and surgeries on minors have been exposed…Now, hospitals that receive taxpayer funds from these federal programs must follow suit.”
• Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman of Do No Harm via The Daily Signal: “President Trump and HHS are taking another critical step to protect children from harmful gender ideology…The proposed rule—banning hospitals from performing sex change interventions on minors as a condition for Medicare and Medicaid participation—is common sense, evidence-based, and morally imperative.”
• The American College of Pediatricians: The American College of Pediatricians stands with @SecKennedy and @HHSGov to restore ethical and evidence-based practices in pediatric medicine!
• Republican Attorneys General Association @RepublicanAGs: “Today’s announcement helps restore sanity to our nation’s healthcare system by protecting children from chemical castration and surgical mutilation procedures.”

Influencers:

• Riley Gaines @Riley_Gaines: “Decades from now, people will ask how doctors were allowed to mutilate & butcher healthy children in the name of "care". HHS stepping in to block sex-rejecting procedures on kids is a major win for child protection. Thank you, @HHSGov & @SecKennedy”
• Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh: “BREAKING: In a HUGE move, HHS Sec. RFK Jr. takes major action to BAN transgender s*x changes for children nationwide. PROTECT THE CHILDREN. This is common sense.” 
• Chaya Raichik: BREAKING: “The HHS announced new actions to enforce Trump's EO to END the m*tilation of CHILDREN…This is exactly what I voted for! Thank you, @realDonaldTrump for protecting vulnerable children!”
• Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson: “Now THIS is how you kick off a news conference at the Department of Health and Human Services: "Men are men. Men can never become women. Women are women. Women can never become men. Children are innocent and they need our protection."”
• Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh: “BREAKING: In a HUGE move, HHS Sec. RFK Jr. takes major action to BAN transgender s*x changes for children nationwide PROTECT THE CHILDREN. This is common sense. “I signed a declaration stating that s*x-rejecting procedures are neither safe nor effective for children with gender dysphoria.” “Medical professionals or entities providing s*x-rejecting procedures to children are out of compliance with these standards.”
• Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh: “BREAKING: FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and RFK Jr. are now TARGETING the Transgender Industrial Complex. 12 manufacturers just got the notice: Stop marketing breast binders for "transgender children," or face the consequences. SHUT IT DOWN. Trump is done tolerating it.”
• Mia Hughes @_CryMiaRiver:“’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 wellbeing of children.' Perfectly said.”
• Rebecca Rose Woodland, New York trial attorney via Newsmax: “There are so many aspects of the law that if you're under 18, your parents have to step in. If you're under 18, you can't drink, you can't do drugs, you can't smoke, you can't do anything. But somehow these children can get some sort of advice without the parents’ consent on something, it's life altering, it's mutilating. I'm so proud of our [Health secretary]. I'm so proud of Doctor Oz. I'm so proud of that [Admiral Levine]. They're standing for children. Children do not have the ability, and it's been determined for years in the law in general to make major decisions once you're 18. Well, that's a different story. But under 18, legally, this is what the government should do. Protect minors.”
• Elizabeth Mitchell, The Daily Signal White House reporter via Newsmax: “HHS has certainly taken a massive turn from what we saw in the Biden administration, where we had a transgender identifying assistant secretary of health. And then now we have Doctor Oz, RFK Jr coming out and defending, protecting children from these procedures. It's a huge change…this, I think, will pack a particular punch because pretty much all hospitals accept Medicare or Medicaid. And so no hospitals will be able to prescribe these puberty blockers, prescribe hormone regimens, or do these surgeries on these kids. And I've spoken to many de-transitioners who were troubled kids. They suffered from depression. They felt like they were different when they were kids. And some of them got these surgeries before they even turned 18 and grew up to really regret that. It caused them not only physical pain, but a lot of emotional pain that they can never be in the body that God created them to have. And so I think this is a really great move in the right direction.”
• Harrison Fields, Senior Vice President at CGCN via Newsmax: “We've got to thank President Trump for another promise made and a promise kept. But really, what this is, was a prayer answered for so many American families like mine who have been praying that we have a U.S. president and a secretary of HHS that is willing to protect kids from gender mutilation. This is what suburban mom and dads across this country are wanting. We see the attack on our children. We have a president that is now protecting them.”
• Dr. Simone Gold @drsimonegold: “BREAKING: HHS has barred hospitals from performing sterilizing surgeries and dangerous hormone treatments on children and cut off federal funding. Children cannot consent to permanent harm. This is the correct and necessary line to draw.”
• Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal: “RFK JR. CRACKS DOWN ON HOSPITALS DOING SEX CHANGE SURGERIES ON MINORS: "NO MORE GOVT FUNDING" RFK Jr. just dropped 2 rules that could shake up nearly every hospital in the country. First, if a hospital takes Medicare or Medicaid money, and they pretty much all do, it won’t be allowed to perform gender surgeries on minors. Second, Medicaid dollars can’t be used to fund those procedures either. That’s called drawing a line. Then there’s the FDA, which just told 12 companies to quit marketing breast binders to kids. These devices are supposed to help cancer patients, not treat teenage identity crises. The FDA says pushing them to minors without approval is illegal, and it’s not bluffing... seizures and shutdowns are on the table.”
• Nick Sotor @nicksotor: “BREAKING: RFK Jr announced he’s signed a directive BANNING transgender surgeries for minors nationwide. “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 wellbeing of children.” FINALLY! 🔥
• January Littlejohn @JanuaryDoNoHarm: “I have waited 5 years to hear this. 'The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics peddled the lie that chemical and surgical sex-rejecting procedures could be good for children who suffer from gender dysphoria…. This is not medicine; it is malpractice.’”
• End Tribalism in Politics @EndTribalism: “RFK Jr. slams a reporter who questions HHS’s science behind banning gender-affirming care in minors. ‘We have a 1,300 page report, I urge you to read it.' 'I don't think anybody can read that science without saying we made a huge mistake.’ ‘It's a disgrace to the medical establishment that they let this go on for so long based upon so little positive data and overwhelming data against these procedures.’”
• Dr. Debra Soh @DrDebraSoh: “The HHS has announced it is banning gender transitioning in children. Hallelujah. This evil experiment is finally coming to an end.”