Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, speaks at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC on December 18, 2025. Oz and other Trump administration officials announced proposed rules that would limit gender-specific care for minors. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration took major steps Thursday in a campaign to deny minors nationwide access to gender-affirming care.
Under two modern rules proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, hospitals would be prohibited from providing gender reassignment treatments to children as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid programs, and would be prohibited from using Medicaid funds to finance such care for minors.
Because most hospitals receive Medicare and Medicaid funding, the rules, if passed, would essentially have the effect of a statewide ban.
The announcement came a day after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would impose federal penalties for gender-affirming care for minors, and hours before a separate measure was proposed that would ban Medicaid funding for gender reassignment treatments for minors.
The proposed regulations, which will next be subject to public comment, are certain to raise legal challenges.
The effort builds on Trump’s Implementing regulation in January, which restricted access to gender-equitable care for children.
More than half of states already have laws or policies aimed at restricting young people’s access to gender-affirming care, according to the nonpartisan health research organization KFF.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, along with several other health officials, announced the proposals at a press conference at HHS headquarters in Washington, DC
There were a handful of Republican congressmen in the room. At least two Republican attorneys general — Ken Paxton of Texas and Todd Rokita of Indiana — were also present.
At the press conference, Dr. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary said the FDA was also sending “warning letters” to 12 manufacturers and sellers of chest binders for “illegally marketing chest binders to children for the treatment of gender dysphoria.”
Breast binders are used to flatten tissue in the breast.
Kennedy said his agency’s Office for Civil Rights is trying to “undo the Biden administration’s attempt to include gender dysphoria in the definition of disability.”
The House of Representatives passes anti-transgender legislation
The proposed rules are part of the Trump administration’s broader anti-trans agenda.
Trump signed Implementing regulations This makes it the “policy of the United States to recognize two genders, male and female,” which aims to openly prohibit Transgender Service Members by the US military and tried to ban trans athletes from doing so Participation in women’s sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
Meanwhile, efforts at the congressional level to restrict young people’s access to gender-affirming care are facing a dismal outcome in the Senate, where any legislation would likely need the support of at least 60 senators to overcome the filibuster.
The house passed a measure Wednesday night, 216-211, which said medical professionals could face up to 10 years in prison for providing gender-affirming care to minors.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who sponsored the bill, called its passage a “win for children across America.” Social media post Wednesday.
It’s likely the final legislative achievement for the Georgia Republican Resignation from Congress Early January.
Four Republicans Voting against the measure were Reps. Gabe Evans of Colorado, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Mike Kennedy of Utah and Mike Lawler of New York.
Three Democrats voted with the GOP to support the bill: Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Don Davis of North Carolina.
The House also passed one measure Thursday, 215-201from Texas GOP Reps. Dan Crenshaw and Greene, which aims to ban “Medicaid funding for gender reassignment procedures for minors.”
Cuellar, Gonzalez and Davis, along with fellow Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state, also supported the Republican-led bill.
“Cruel and unconstitutional attacks”
Kelley Robinson, President of the Human Rights Campaignan LGBTQ+ advocacy group, criticized the administration’s proposals, saying they would “put Donald Trump and RFK Jr. in these doctors’ offices, take health care decisions away from families and put them in the hands of the anti-LGBTQ+ fringe.”
Robinson also emphasized that the rules are “suggestions and not binding law” and called on community members, health care providers, administrators and allies to “vocally oppose them by outlining how devastating these proposals would be to their families and the health care community at large.”
Also the American Civil Liberties Union condemned the government’s proposals and vowed to challenge the effort in court.
Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project, called the proposals “cruel and unconstitutional attacks on the rights of transgender youth and their families.”
Strangio said the proposals would “force doctors to choose between their ethical obligations to their patients and the risk of losing federal funding” and “uproot families who have already fled state bans, leaving them with no place to turn for the care they need to survive and thrive.”
