HHS condemns ‘predatory’ gender procedures for minors, citing significant harms, ‘child-mutilation’

The “malpractice” of sex-rejecting procedures permanently harms children and will no longer receive federal funding, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy announced Thursday.

“So-called gender affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people,” Kennedy said at the HHS meeting. “This is not medicine. It is malpractice. We’re done with junk science driven by ideological pursuits, not the well-being of children.”

Kennedy referenced a recent 300-page report from a peer-reviewed study on gender-dysphoria that found the harms of sex-transition are “significant, long-term, and too often ignored.” These procedures are not medical but instead are rooted in “ideology, misinformation and propaganda,” which “push vulnerable young people into decisions they cannot fully understand, and that they can never reverse,” Kennedy said. 

He announced six actions, “grounded in evidence and shaped by compassion,” HHS is taking to end the mutilation of children. The first action launched with Kennedy signing a declaration Thursday entitled “Sex Rejecting Procedures are Neither Safe nor Effective for Children with Gender Dysphoria.”  

“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,” Kennedy said.  

Additionally, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing two new rules – to bar hospitals from performing sex-transition procedures and to prohibit federal Medicaid dollars from funding such procedures. 

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said any hospital that “continues to offer sex-rejecting procedures to vulnerable populations of pediatric aged kids” will be excluded from the Medicare and Medicaid program. He detailed the damaging effects of sex-rejecting surgeries, which remove entire organs, puberty blockers, which reduce bone density and alter brain development, and cross-sex hormones, which often generate infertility and cardiovascular issues. 

“We are in a weird place in America where we have mixed politics and medicine,” Oz said, detailing the replacement of science with ideology. “And you know what you get when you mix politics and medicine? Politics. There is no medicine left.” 

This political ideology also profits billions of dollars from child-mutilation, Oz said. In 2023, the revenue for sex-rejecting drugs and surgeries exceeded $4.4 billion, and CMS likely has funded more than $250 million in procedures over the past 10 years, he added. 

In the third HHS action, the Food and Drug Administration informed the 12 largest manufacturers of breast binders that advertising these products to children is illegal. 

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary called transgender ideology “predatory,” saying “genital mutilation” is “one of the most barbaric features of a society.” 

“We’re talking about an ideology that is supported by flawed science: that every child as young as four years of age should pick from an array of genders,” Makary said. “We’ve got high schools now where half the kids don’t identify as a boy or girl. What’s going on?” 

Kennedy also abolished the Biden administration’s classification of “gender dysphoria” as a disability, protected by non-discrimination requirements. 

Finally, Assistant Secretary of Health Admiral Brian Christine signed a public health message Thursday, informing healthcare providers, policymakers and families that sex-transition procedures are neither safe nor effective treatments for children’s gender dysphoria, Kennedy said. 

“Protecting our children’s health and their future is good medicine. Protecting our children’s health and their future is our moral obligation,” Christine said. “Today, I am offering the opportunity for every medical professional to absolutely reject harmful, irreversible procedures on minors and instead to prioritize medicine that puts the health of America’s children first.” 

Advocate Chloe Cole, who endured a double mastectomy at age 15 and de-transitioned back to her biological sex at age 16, spoke to “represent a community of people who have been harmed by these procedures.”  

“I’ve become an advocate for protecting children from what is often mistakenly referred to as ‘gender affirming care,’ because it is by no means ‘care’ but unscientific medical abuse that violates every tenet of medical ethics,” Cole said, adding, “they messed with the wrong kid.” 

She said she carries grief silently every day and hides her tears because of the “moral failings” of her doctors, whose work ensured she could never “nourish” her own children. 

“Every boy and every girl deserves to be loved the way that they were beautifully created in their mother’s womb,” Cole said. “And to the young people out there who are struggling with this mental illness: I want you to know that there is a better way out, and it’s not too late to accept the beautiful way that God has created you.” 

The announcement commences a period of public comment before the department “issues its final ruling” in 60-90 days. 

In step with HHS actions, the House of Representatives passed the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which would make providing gender-altering procedures to children illegal and could imprison any doctor who performs them, CNN reports. While the bill continues to the Senate, it is unlikely to gain enough Democratic votes to pass, according to CNN.  

“There is divine worth in every person. It shines, most brightly in our children,” Kennedy said. “That worth commands us to protect them.”