HHS takes sweeping action to reverse Biden-era policies on sex-change procedures

by Morgan Sweeney, The Center Square, Dec 18, 2025

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services unveiled a multi-pronged regulatory effort Thursday to curtail sex change for minors, including gender transition procedures at hospitals.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has drafted a rule that would prohibit pharmaceutical or surgical gender reassignment procedures from receiving federal Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program funding. It’s also proposing a rule that would allow it to withdraw Medicare and Medicaid funding from hospitals that perform such surgeries on minors. HHS is also working to “reverse the Biden administration’s attempt” to classify gender dysphoria as a type of disability. If gender dysphoria were to be defined as a disability, then health care providers who don’t want to perform what the department has dubbed “sex-rejecting” procedures could be in danger of violating anti-discrimination laws. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr., described sex-change procedures as “unsafe” and “irreversible,” and framed the administration’s actions as “[protecting] America’s most vulnerable.”

“Our children deserve better – and we are delivering on that promise,” Kennedy told reporters Thursday.

The department is acting on directives from an executive order from President Donald Trump’s first few weeks in office. The Jan. 28 order called on government agencies to “[defund] chemical and surgical mutilation” of children, seemingly in the manner that HHS has proposed, as well as “rescind or amend all policies” relying on guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

The Food and Drug Administration is also taking regulatory action against some organizations that market breast binders to minors.

“Illegal marketing of these products for children is alarming, and the FDA will take further enforcement action such as import alerts, seizures, and injunctions if it continues,” said Food and Drug Commissioner Marty Makary.

Kennedy signed a declaration Thursday that gender affirming procedures for minors “do not meet professionally recognized standards of health care” and the Assistant Secretary for Health and Head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, Admiral Brian Christine, signed a public health message stating the same.

“Evidence shows sex-rejecting puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries are dangerous. Providers have an obligation to offer care grounded in evidence and to avoid interventions that expose young people to a lifetime of harm,” Christine said.

The House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would criminalize the act of providing sex-change procedures to minors.

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‘Long overdue’: Praise for HHS’ action to bar taxpayer-funded sex-change procedures

by Tate Miller, The Center Square, December 20, 2025 

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ action to bar “sex-rejecting” transgender procedures for minors has met with approval from groups that aim to protect children from harmful ideology, with some calling the move “long overdue,” stating that taxpayers should not be forced to pay for procedures that lack proven benefits.

This week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “unveiled a multi-pronged regulatory effort” that includes prohibiting surgical reassignment centers from receiving Medicaid and other funding as well as withdrawing Medicare and Medicaid funding from hospitals that perform sex-rejecting surgeries on minors, thereby ending such procedures, as The Center Square reported.

President of family defense organization the American Principles Project Terry Schilling told The Center Square: “President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [Robert F.} Kennedy are providing long overdue protections to families across the country.”

“For too long, families have been left at the mercy of a medical establishment that seeks to disfigure vulnerable children for profit,” Schilling said.

Dr. Jay Richards, director of the DeVos Center for Human Flourishing and the William E. Simon senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told The Center Square: “We’re delighted that Secretary Kennedy and HHS are taking such bold action to protect children who are struggling with the sexual aspects of their bodies.”

“The lack of evidence for benefits of sex-rejecting procedures (euphemistically called ‘gender affirming care’) is now well known,” Richards said. “And the recent HHS umbrella review underscores this fact.”

“Taxpayers should not have to pay for these ghoulish procedures, nor support hospitals that continue to perform them,” Richards said.

Richards said that Heritage hopes HHS’ move “will mean that fewer parents will be emotionally blackmailed by therapists or medical professionals ]into[ allowing their children to be subjected to these medical interventions, which can lead to permanent physical harm and sterilization.”

Chairman at Do No Harm – a medical group working to keep identity politics out of medicine – Dr. Stanley Goldfarb told The Center Square that “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,” Goldfarb said.

“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,” Goldfarb said. 

“Now, hospitals that receive taxpayer funds from these federal programs must follow suit,” Goldfarb said, stating Do No Harm’s intention to “ensure American taxpayer dollars do not fund sex-change operations on minors.”

“This is just the beginning, but it marks a major step toward delivering a crippling blow to the child transgender industry,” Goldfarb said.

The Human Rights Campaign – an LGBTQ civil rights organization – sees the HHS’ move as “denying health care to this country,” as its president, Kelley Robinson, told The Center Square.

Kelley said that “these rules are proposals, not binding law,” and stated the Human Rights Campaign will fight alongside allies pushing back against the proposals.

“Families deserve the freedom to go to the doctor and get the care that they need and to have agency over the health and wellbeing of their children,” Robinson said. “These rules aim to completely cut off medically necessary care from children no matter where in this country they live.”

Do No Harm released a report this year that says the evidence behind sex trait modifications is “extremely weak,” and popular beliefs about “gender-affirming care” for minors have been debunked, such as the idea it improves quality of life and mental health or that it decreases suicide, The Center Square reported.

Additionally, the Heritage Foundation’s Richards told The Center Square that “the medical transition pathway from puberty blockers to surgery was always an experiment in search of confirming evidence.”

“As the HHS Report on pediatric gender medicine shows, the evidence now points strongly against this,” Richards said.

The American Principles Project (APP) told The Center Square it’s “important to note that the House passed the Protecting Children’s Innocence Act” this week, something that “would ban child sex changes nationwide.”

APP’s president Terry Schilling told The Center Square that “the American people gave Republicans a clear mandate in 2024 to end child mutilation.”

“Republicans in Congress and the White House are delivering on that promise while Democrats have been relentless in their defense of a multi-billion-dollar industry that preys on children,” Schilling said.

GBTQ advocate GLAAD did not respond to requests from The Center Square for comment.