Trump Bans Federal Support for Gender-Affirming Healthcare Up to Age 19

In his administration's latest attack on LGBTQ+ Americans, Republican U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued an executive order banning the federal government from supporting a wide range of gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth.

Trump's order—titled "Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation"—states that the federal government "will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called 'transition' of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures."

"Child" is defined in the order as anyone younger than 19—including 18-year-old adults. The directive covers treatments and procedures including gender-affirming surgeries, puberty blockers, and hormone replacement therapy. The ban will adversely affect people who rely upon federal programs including Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE, through which the Department of Defense provides health coverage for nearly 2 million youth dependents.

Furthermore, the order—which is almost certain to be challenged in court—places hospitals, clinics, and other providers of gender-affirming care at risk of losing federal funding.

"This executive order is a brazen attempt to put politicians in between people and their doctors, preventing them from accessing evidence-based healthcare supported by every major medical association in the country," Kelly Robinson, president of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group 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 healthcare decisions."

"Questions about this care should be answered by doctors—not politicians—and decisions must rest with families, doctors, and the patient," Robinson added. "Everyone deserves the freedom to make deeply personal healthcare decisions for themselves and their families—no matter your income, zip code, or health coverage."

Trump made opposing rights for transgender people—especially children—a major part of his 2024 campaign, as it was during his first term.

The president's executive order claims that "medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child's sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions."

"This dangerous trend will be a stain on our nation's history, and it must end," asserts the directive, which dubiously claims that "countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding."

However, trans advocate Erin Reed pushed back, noting on social media that "detransition is rare, 1-4% in most studies, and regret even lower."

Furthermore, many doctors and medical experts agree that gender-affirming care saves the lives of trans youth, who are at higher risk of suicide and other self-harm, partly due to discrimination, bullying, and other societal pressures.

Trans people and their allies are already fighting back against Trump's policies. On Tuesday, half a dozen active-duty transgender U.S. troops and two people seeking to join the military sued to block a revival of the president's first-term ban on trans people enlisting in the armed forces.

The previous day, a transgender woman inmate in a federal women's prison sued the Trump administration over a recent executive order narrowly defining sex, arguing it is motivated by hate, violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and places her in mortal danger if she is transferred to a men's facility as ordered by the government.

In stark contrast with the direction in which Trump is steering the U.S., health officials in Thailand—which last year became the first nation in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage equality—this week announced a multimillion-dollar initiative to provide gender-affirming care for 200,000 transgender people in the country.

Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said last week that the marriage equality law, which went into effect this month, "marks the beginning of Thai society's greater awareness of gender diversity, and our embrace of everyone regardless of sexual orientation, race, or religion—our affirmation that everyone is entitled to equal rights and dignity."