Trump Administration Moves To Cut Off Trans Youth Health Care Nationwide

November 3, 2025 Dan Tracer

Protest sign that says "Protect Trans Kids"

Newly revealed documents show the federal government planning to defund hospitals that support trans youth.

Featured image by Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images

The Trump administration is moving to eliminate access to gender-affirming care for transgender youth nationwide through proposed new rules drafted by the Department of Health and Human Services. Documents obtained by NPR show that the proposals would block federal Medicaid reimbursement for any medical care provided to trans patients under 18 and prohibit coverage under the Children’s Health Insurance Program for those under 19. Another proposal would go further, cutting off all Medicaid and Medicare funding to any hospital that offers pediatric gender-affirming care, effectively making such care impossible to find in most of the country.

“These rules would be a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s attack on access to transgender health care,” Katie Keith, director of the Center for Health Policy and the Law at Georgetown University, told NPR. Because hospitals depend heavily on Medicare, Keith explained, the move would force them to shut down their programs or lose federal funding. The proposals are expected to be released publicly in early November, with litigation likely to follow.

The administration has made restricting trans rights a cornerstone of its policy agenda. On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order declaring that the United States “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.” Since then, his team has dismantled a suicide prevention lifeline for trans youth, canceled LGBTQ research grants, and pressured hospitals with threats of prosecution.

Trans activist and attorney Alejandra Caraballo described the proposals as a “de facto national ban.” She wrote on Bluesky, “There would still be providers in blue states that don’t take federal funding but the large interdisciplinary teams of just a few years ago would be nearly impossible to maintain. The result is that the care that remains would largely be underground with worse support and likely outcomes.”

Every major U.S. medical association supports gender-affirming care for minors, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, calling it safe and often life-saving. Only about 3 percent of U.S. youth identify as transgender or non-binary, and fewer than 3,000 teens currently receive puberty blockers or hormone therapy, according to a 2025 JAMA analysis. Despite that, the administration continues to portray gender-affirming care as a national threat.

Katie Eyer, a Rutgers University law professor and parent of a transgender child, warned that the implications of the government dictating that hospitals cease certain kinds of care for specific patient groups could also reach far beyond this issue. “If it were successful, I shudder to think what this administration would do with such a tool in their hands,” she told NPR.