The federal government is cracking down on “gender-affirming care.”

Last month, not only did the US House pass a measure in the budget reconciliation package to cut federal funding for chemical castration and gender mutilation, but two federal health agencies published letters directing healthcare institutions to update treatment protocols in response to a massive federal study on transgenderism released in early May.

On Wednesday, May 28, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. published a letter instructing health care providers to “promptly make necessary updates to your treatment protocols and training for care for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria to protect them from these harmful interventions.” A comprehensive review from the HHS released on May 1 found serious flaws with how “gender dysphoria” is diagnosed and treated by American medical practitioners.

• The first flaw: “The diagnosis of gender dysphoria is based entirely on subjective self-reports and behavioral observations, without any objective physical, imaging, or laboratory markers. The diagnosis centers on attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that are known to fluctuate during adolescence.” This faulty diagnostic process is not grounds for serious medical intervention.
• The report emphasizes that medical practitioners “have no way to know which patients may continue to experience gender dysphoria and which will come to terms with their bodies.” Studies have confirmed that the majority of children (some estimate over 90%) will outgrow their gender dysphoria when they reach adulthood.
• Despite these flaws in the diagnostic process, transgender treatments include “irreversible endocrine and surgical interventions” that carry the risk of “infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications, and regret.”
• The study found that the potential risks vastly outweigh the unconfirmed benefits: “Systematic reviews of the evidence have revealed deep uncertainty about the purported benefits of these interventions. […] The overall quality of evidence concerning the effects of any intervention on psychological outcomes, quality of life, regret, or long-term health, is very low.”

The 409-page comprehensive study revealed a myriad of other concerns with “gender-affirming care” practices – this short list only scratches the surface.

On the same day Kennedy published his letter, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz also released a letter with specific instructions for hospitals that offer transgender “treatments” for minors. CMS is responsible for overseeing Medicaid, Medicare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Health Insurance Marketplace.

“The United States Government has serious concerns with medical interventions for gender dysphoria in children. […] CMS believes that these interventions were initiated with an underdeveloped body of evidence, lack reliable evidence of benefits for minors, and are now known to carry serious risks of long-term and irreparable harm,” the letter reads.

Dr. Oz gave hospitals 30 days to submit information on “the adequacy of informed consent protocols for children with gender dysphoria, including how children are deemed capable of making these potentially life-changing decisions and when parental consent is required.”

CMS will also require hospitals to list what changes they plan to make in response to the HHS study and provide “complete financial data for all pediatric sex trait modifications performed,” including the insurance billing codes used and projected revenue from transgender procedures, which range in cost from $50,000 to $130,000. Congress, HHS, CMS, and the Trump administration have signaled that the era of unchecked, federally funded “gender-affirming care” is over. These are welcome changes amid a growing body of research that suggests the harms of transgender treatments far outweigh any alleged “benefits.”