31-01-2025
Trump signs executive order to defund youth gender-affirming care
President Trump issued an executive order on Tuesday attempting to ban federal funding or support for youth gender-affirming care.
The big picture: The policy is the administration's latest in a series of attacks against transgender people in the U.S.
The latest executive order applies to people under 19, categorizing 18-year-olds with children.
What's next: Trump directed the Department of Health and Human Service to publish a review of existing literature on best practices for promoting the health of children with gender dysphoria within 90 days.
The department was also directed to regulate programs like Medicare or Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, essential health benefit requirements and federally funded manuals of diseases and disorders.
The head of each executive department or agency that provides research or education grants was ordered to take steps to ensure that institutions receiving funding end gender-affirming care.
The order also calls for removing federal funding from medical schools and hospitals that research gender-affirming care.
Catch up quick: On Inauguration Day, Trump signed an executive order that the federal government would only recognize two sexes, male and female.
He's since called on the Pentagon to formulate a new policy that would target transgender service members.
What they're saying: Chase Strangio, Co-Director of the ACLU's LGBT & HIV Project, said in a statement: "Today's order lays out a clear plan to shut down access to life-saving medical care for transgender youth nationwide, overriding the role of families and putting politics between patients and their doctors."
"We will not allow this dangerous, sweeping, and unconstitutional order to stand," added Strangio, who defended access to gender-affirming care before the Supreme Court last year.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement: "It is deeply unfair to play politics with people's lives and strip transgender young people, their families, and their providers of the freedom to make necessary health care decisions."
LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD in a statement called the rhetoric in Trump's executive orders "appallingly inaccurate and incoherent" and "already ruled unconstitutional by one judge last week."
It added the language was "increasingly extreme in defaming transgender people and spreading graphic disinformation about health care that is supported by every major medical association."
Reality check: Gender-affirming care is supported by major medical organizations including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association, which all concur that gender-affirming care is lifesaving medical care.
Drugs like puberty blockers are temporary and reversible and used for both trans and non-trans youth who experience early onset puberty.
Between the lines: Fewer than 0.1% of adolescents received drugs for gender-affirming care between 2018 and 2022, per a study led by Harvard University researchers published this month.
No patient under 12 years old who were transgender or gender diverse received hormones, the study found.
Zoom out: The Supreme Court, meanwhile, seems likely to uphold a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth following oral arguments last month.
Since the first legislative ban on youth gender-affirming care was passed in 2021, such legislation has taken effect in 26 states, per the Human Rights Campaign.
Go deeper: Trump's road map for defunding gender-affirming care
Editor's note: This story has been updated with reactions from the ACLU, GLAAD and Human Rights Campaign.
