Several hospital systems in states around the U.S. have paused sex change drugs and surgeries for minors following an executive order from President Donald Trump on Jan. 28 barring the “destructive and life-altering procedures” for people under 19 years old.
The order, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” states that “it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.” The order also calls for the head of each executive department or agency that provides research or education grants to medical institutions to “immediately take appropriate steps to ensure that institutions receiving Federal research or education grants end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”
Several media outlets have since reported about various hospital systems around the United States pausing sex changes for minors while they decide how to proceed under Trump’s executive order.
READ MORE: Trump Signs Executive Order Banning Sex-Change Procedures for Minors
For example, Denver Health in Colorado has stopped performing sex change surgeries on people under 19 to comply with the order and continue receiving federal funding, a spokesperson told NBC News.
VCU Health and Children’s Hospital in Virginia also told the outlet they have halted sex change drugs and surgeries for people under 19 years old, and Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, has similarly paused prescriptions for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors, a spokesperson told the outlet. That hospital reportedly never performed sex change surgeries on minors.
The New York Times published an article on Feb. 1 titled “N.Y. Hospital Stops Treating 2 Children After Trump’s Trans Care Order.” While NYU Langone Health has not made any public announcements, parents told the publication that the city’s leading hospital system has begun canceling appointments for children receiving sex change drugs. That same day, the Washington Post published a story about several hospitals pausing sex change drugs and surgeries for minors.
9News reported last week that UCHealth in Denver paused sex changes for minors, a spokesperson saying in part: “…we support adults’ rights to make informed decisions about their own health care. We also have a responsibility to ensure that our organization complies with all applicable laws…”
Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago also said last week that hospital officials are reviewing Trump’s order and “assessing any potential impact to the clinical services” they offer, according to Fox59. A spokesperson for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania told Becker’s Hospital Review said they are “closely reviewing recent government actions, including the executive order on Jan. 28, to understand how they might impact care for the children who rely on [it].”
The side effects for sex change drugs and procedures can be severe, including irreversible mutilation and infertility. Some of these so-called treatments include double mastectomies (the removal of healthy breasts), female and male genital mutilation and removal, facial feminization and masculinization, hormone treatments, and puberty blockers that can cause chemical sterilization. Puberty blockers can also have long-term impact on bone growth, bone density, and growth spurts, according to Mayo Clinic.
Many people who have undergone these sex change drugs and procedures as minors and later decided to reverse course, called detransitioners, have begun speaking out about the irreversible physical damage and mental torment they have experienced.
Trump’s order is part of his effort to role back the Biden administration’s radical embrace of gender ideology and promotion of sex changes for minors. The top-down push for minors to obtain sex-mutilating drugs and surgeries under the misleading moniker “gender-affirming care” is also promulgated in academia and by large hospitals, and major medical organizations.
Transgender activists frequently claim that such sex-mutilating drugs and procedures for confused minors reduce suicides and improve mental health — dubious claims which increasingly appear untrue as more studies and data come to light.
READ MORE: Biden Administration Promotes Transgender Sex-Change Surgery, Puberty Blockers for Minors
The vast majority of gender-confused or "gender-questioning" children grow out of it, according to a 15-year longitudinal study conducted in the Netherlands, which tracked more than 2,700 children from the age of 11 to their mid-20s.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 4, 2024
Being transgender is a trend -- it's a phase… pic.twitter.com/Oqwwlc3MrI
Other research has indicated that a majority of children who are confused about their sex grow out of that feeling by the time they become adults. European countries that pushed sex change drugs and surgeries for minors before the United States are notably reversing course over concerns about long-term impacts.
At the root, these actors, along with the proliferation of gender ideology on social media, ultimately promote the false idea that human beings can be a different sex than what they were born as. Even further, the gender ideology complex claims these individuals should take sex-change drugs and get sex-change procedures to align their outward appearance with how they feel on the inside.
The marketisation of children and the mutilation of their bodies is big business.
— gender is harmful (@genderisharmful) June 13, 2022
Things have gone way too far!
Yet people are still aggressively pushing hard for this to continue.https://t.co/V1Zq8ijWvl pic.twitter.com/BdSUwEolmD
While the push toward transgenderism is heavily ideological, a report released in December 2020 found that the U.S. sex reassignment surgery market size was valued at $267 million in 2019 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 14.4 percent from 2020 to 2027.
Trump repeatedly vowed during his presidential campaign to reverse course on the Biden administration’s embrace of gender ideology, to protect women’s sports and spaces, and to protect children from mutilating sex-change drugs and procedures — all actions which he took within his first two weeks of his second term. Many of his cabinet selections have a history of supporting the biological reality of two sexes, and with control of the House and Senate, Republicans have expressed plans to do the same.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
