HHS bans trans youth care, blocks virtually all US hospitals from performing medicine for trans people under 18

The announcement conference included remarks from Secretary Kennedy, Dr. Oz, Admiral Brian Christine, and Chloe Cole, among others.

By Artemis T. Douglas & Jane Migliara Brigham

Today, Dec. 18, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced that it will be banning all forms of trans youth care, and cutting all public funding from hospitals which continue to allow any form of trans youth care.

This was announced today at a press conference, where it was made clear that these rules, which were proposed in October, as reported on by NPR, would be taking effect.  

These regulations overlap with those of the trans healthcare ban passed by the house yesterday night, as well as HR. 498, a bill to ban trans coverage through medicaid, which is expected to get a vote sometime tonight.  

The conference included remarks from Secretary Kennedy, Dr. Oz, Admiral Brian Christine, and Chloe Cole, among others.

Kennedy’s remarks focused on transition medicine being some sort of “junk science” and that to protect kids the US government must put a stop to it, going so far as to say, “this is not medicine, it is malpractice. We are done with junk science.”

Of course, transition medicine is well-supported and does lead to remarkably strong health outcomes.  However, it does so for trans people, whom they do not care for.

Kennedy also announced, “Today we are taking six decisive actions, guided by gold standard science and the week one executive order by President Trump.”

“Gold standard” used here is likely saying that because it’s impossible to do randomized controlled trials on puberty that any other evidence is insufficient. This line of argument has circled around UK gender conservatives for years.

Kennedy said that his actions being announced today were ”a clear directive to providers to follow the science.”

Of course, the science that isn’t cissexist and natally focused isn’t considered. Later in the press conference the other speakers made clear that they- and by extension the federal government- believed any science that was pro-transition was not to be trusted.

Kennedy bragged that these rules effectively cut off all transition care for youth nationwide. Not just little children, but youth and young adults too by “First, prohibiting hospitals that participate in medicaid or medicare, which is almost every hospital” from providing transition care.

Kennedy also stated that enforcement would target manufacturers of medical devices with product seizures if they do not comply.

The more important aspect of this is the cutting of federal funds to hospitals that continue these practices. This is the enforcement mechanism that the government wants to use to achieve its goal.  Since nearly all hospitals- and the vast majority of clinics- rely on public funds to operate, they are likely to capitulate to the new rules rather than lose their ability to operate at all.

To be clear, this is not cutting off funds from only transition-related procedures, this is a threat of loss of all Medicare and Medicaid funding if hospitals and clinics provide transition-related care, at all.

For example, the executive order from January that prohibited trans healthcare for those under 19 was only sporadically followed by doctors, in no small part because the federal government lacked an enforcement mechanism to enforce the new rule.

It was also announced that HHS would be issuing warnings to the manufacturers of breast binders which were targeted to minors, as these could be used in the aid of social transition.  

However, the core reasoning for this announcement was best distilled into a single line by Admiral Brian Christine, who stated “we need strong healthy boys and girls who will know the joy of coming together as one and starting their own family one day and if they are subjected to these sex rejecting procedures that will not happen.”

In other words, the US federal government is prepared to enforce reactionary natalism and force young US Citizens into breeding more kids. 

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This conservative anxiety ties into fascist movements against and conspiracies regarding demographic shifts and other effects of a modern, industrialized society.

For example, birth rates tend to drop with industrialization and modern medicine– especially vaccines, meaning you need less kids, because less of them die young.

The head of the NIH, Jay Bhattacharya, also announced that the NIH would cease all funding towards transition research, stating that by the end of this year it will all be gone from our portfolio” and that transition research “was a junk science to begin with”.

In conjunction with that announcement, he stated that the NIH would provide special funding for researching treatments for detransition– “there are thousands of kids who are mentally distressed, families torn apart- we are going to fund science to help those families, help those kids who are detransitioning or thinking of detransitioning.”

Bhattacharya also claimed, without citing evidence, that there was “there was never any evidence for" parents being told that denying their kids transition medicine would increase their risk of suicide.

In the conference, Dr. Oz– acting in his role as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services used the costs of sex change surgeries as a fearmongering tactic. Oz also claimed that transition medicine was only provided for profit and greed motives.

Of course, nowhere in the conference did anyone present announce or call for a public, not-for-profit universal healthcare system so it is clear the concern about profits in medicine isn’t one of principle but cynicism.