Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other officials on Dec. 18 announced new steps they’re taking to cut down on breast removal and other “sex-rejecting” procedures for children.
Kennedy signed a declaration stating that “sex-rejecting procedures for children and adolescents are neither safe nor effective as a treatment modality for gender dysphoria, gender incongruence, or other related disorders in minors, and therefore, fail to meet professional recognized standards of health care.” Those procedures include vaginoplasties, or surgeries to create “vaginas” on males, and drugs such as puberty blockers, he said.
“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 at a press conference in Washington.
He pointed to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that analyzed procedures and treatments for gender dysphoria and concluded that many of them carry the risk of significant harms, including infertility and a loss in bone density. The report recommended psychotherapy as an alternative.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of HHS, will issue two new proposed rules. One would bar hospitals that participate in Medicare and Medicaid from performing the procedures, and another would prohibit federal money from funding them.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the division, said at the briefing that 53 percent of children are covered under federal insurance.
“We’re not going to let taxpayer money go to hurt these children,” he said.
Institutions can profit enormously from the procedures, Oz said. He cited a 2022 paper that found that a vaginoplasty costs about $60,000, and a procedure to construct a “penis” costs $148,540.
HHS is also moving to reverse the previous administration’s attempt to have gender dysphoria added to the definition of disability in federal law. It plans to issue a proposed rule telling recipients of federal funds that policies limiting the procedures do not violate non-discrimination requirements.
Drugs and other transgender-related treatments and procedures used by hospitals and doctors for children with gender dysphoria, or confusion over their gender, include drugs that block puberty and cross-sex hormones.
Dr. Brian Christine, an HHS official, said in a letter to families and providers that evidence “demonstrates an unfavorable risk-benefit profile for chemical and surgical interventions in children and adolescents with gender dysphoria.”
The Food and Drug Administration, another division of HHS, has also sent warning letters to 12 manufacturers of chest binders, used to hide the breasts of females who do not identify as female. The FDA said that marketing the chest binders to children as a gender dysphoria treatment is a regulatory violation and could lead to repercussions if not corrected.
“Illegal marketing of these products for children is alarming, and the FDA will take further enforcement action such as import alerts, seizures, and injunctions if it continues,” Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA’s commissioner, said in a statement.
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of the group Do No Harm, praised the steps, describing in a statement to The Epoch Times the Medicare and Medicaid limitation as “common sense, evidence-based, and morally imperative.”
“This is just the beginning, but it marks a major step toward delivering a crippling blow to the child transgender industry,” he added.
Dr. Jamila Perritt, president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health, was among the critics of the actions.
“Today’s proposed rules are a deliberate and targeted attack on transgender youth, their families, and the clinicians committed to providing patients the care they need,” Perritt said in a statement.
