‘Junk Science’: Trump Administration To Ban Transgender Care To Children, Targets Hospitals

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Last Updated:December 19, 2025, 09:01 IST

The proposed new rules by the US Department of Health would prevent hospitals from participating in federal programmes if they provide care for transgender minors.

Officials of the Trump administration announced on Thursday that the government will block transgender care to children by targeting hospitals and doctors that provide it. The proposed new rules would prevent hospitals from participating in Medicare and Medicaid if they provide care such as puberty blockers and surgeries for transgender minors, as per reports.

Addressing a press conference over the Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy, US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. said that “sex-rejecting procedures” were neither safe nor effective treatments for children with gender dysphoria.

“Medical professionals or entities providing sex-rejecting procedures to children are out of compliance with these standards of health care. This declaration is a clear directive to providers to follow the science, and the overwhelming body of evidence that these procedures hurt — not help — children,” he said.

He said transgender care to children are robbing them of their futures. “So-called ‘gender affirming care’ has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people… we’re done with junk science, driven by ideological pursuits, not of well-being of children,” he added.

Medical Groups Push Back

Meanwhile, medical groups denounced the announcements, saying they intrude on physician-patient relationships and jeopardise care for everyone, CNN reported. “Allowing the government to determine which patient groups deserve care sets a dangerous precedent, and children and families will bear the consequences,” said Dr Susan Kressly, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Patients, their families, and their physicians – not politicians or government officials – should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them. The government’s actions today make that task harder, if not impossible, for families of gender-diverse and transgender youth,” she added.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that it will challenge the administration’s rules in court. However, Kennedy said the administration is confident it’s approach will pass court challenges.

This marks the latest attempt by the Trump administration to target transgender people, including eliminating mention of trans people on federal websites, halting data collection on health issues, removing trans people from the military and suing states that allow trans athletes to play on high school sports teams.

Earlier, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said the agency will end support for research into gender transition, saying “it was junk science to begin with.”

Gender identity care, often referred to as gender-affirming care, encompasses a range of coordinated services from multiple disciplines that assist individuals in navigating and affirming their gender identity in relation to the sex they were assigned at birth by a medical professional. This includes mental health care or age-appropriate medical care such as hormone treatments, puberty blockers, gynecologic and urologic care and reproductive treatments.

Trump has targeted the rights of transgender people in a series of executive orders since returning to the presidency in January, including one stating that the US government will recognize only two sexes, male and female. Trump has cast the gender identity of transgender people as a lie.

The court in May allowed the administration to implement Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military. Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth subsequently has referred to transgender people as “dudes in dresses”.

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