On December 18, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced new and sweeping regulatory changes that would bring an end to "gender-affirming care" for minors. This includes a ban on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures for those under 18 years of age.
The reforms mean that hospitals who continue to provide such "gender-affirming care" to children would be stripped of all federal funding as a condition in their participation in Medicare/Medicaid programs.
In his announcement, Kennedy said, "Doctors assume a solemn obligation to protect children. Yet doctors across the country now provide needless and irreversible sex-rejecting procedures that violate their sacred Hippocratic oath, endangering the very lives that they are sworn to safeguard."
"Gender-affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on young people," Kennedy continued, "this is not medicine, it is malpractice. We're done with junk science driven by ideological pursuits, not the well-being of children."
Of course, Democratic Attorneys General around the country filed suit over these rule changes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James.
In a statement, James said, "Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices."
Of course, none of these Attorneys General sued when the Biden administration mandated the COVID vaccine, even though that was a "decision that belongs in a doctor's office."
But we digress.
Kennedy's threat has resulted in two Colorado hospitals pulling the plug on their "gender-affirming care" for minors.
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