A growing number of hospitals and health systems no longer provide gender-affirming surgeries for minors, citing a January executive order from President Donald Trump.
The order instructed health insurers to exclude coverage for pediatric transgender surgeries and hormone treatments.
In April, CMS told state Medicaid agencies to not cover hormone therapies or gender-affirming surgery for children. In May, the federal agency said it was investigating an unspecified number of hospitals that offer gender-confirming care to children.
The latest systems to halt these surgeries are Stanford (Calif.) Medicine, Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., UChicago Medicine and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and Connecticut Children’s in Hartford, which do not provide gender-affirming surgeries, recently halted their gender-affirming care programs.
Hospitals and health system executives pointed to President Trump’s executive order as the reason for ending these healthcare services. In late January, NYU Langone Health in New York City was one of the first prominent systems to cancel appointments for transgender children.
Several national healthcare associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, have affirmed the medical necessity of treatments for gender dysphoria.
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