RFK Jr. proposing rules to ban gender-affirming surgeries, other care for minors

The Trump administration has taken steps to ban gender-affirming care for minors, procedures  rarely provided to children.

Federal officials will propose rules to bar hospitals from performing surgical interventions for transgender children as a condition of participating in Medicare and Medicaid. The proposal would also prohibit Medicaid funding for such procedures for children and also apply to the federal Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides low-cost health coverage to children and pregnant women in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid. 

"This is not medicine," Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Dec. 18. "It is malpractice."

Gender-affirming care refers to individualized health care that prioritizes encouraging and supporting a person's gender identity. It can include using the name and pronouns that align with a person's gender identity or, after puberty begins, medical treatments such as puberty blockers or hormone therapies. 

Medicaid and Medicare accounted for about 44% of hospital care spending in 2023, wrote KFF, a health information nonprofit, in 2025.

The proposed rules are subject to a months-long review process that allows for public comment. Groups that support gender-affirming medical procedures are likely to sue.

More than half the states have already banned access to youth gender-affirming care.

The House this week passed what it titled the Protect Children's Innocence Act, which would makes it a federal crime to provide gender transition treatments to minors punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The bill passed largely along party lines, with three Democrats joining Republicans in favor. The bill is likely to stall in the Senate.

In January, Trump signed an executive order that declared the U.S. 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." That order is in litigation after states and the family of a transgender girl sued.

Some U.S. hospitals responded to the order by suspending treatments. 

A February Pew Research Center survey found that Americans have grown more supportive of restrictions for trans people. Fifty-six percent supported banning health care professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors. 

PolitiFact's MAGA-Meter has been tracking Trump's promise to outlaw gender-related surgery for minors. Our promise tracking rates outcomes without making a value judgment on the policies. 

Trump promised to ask Congress to block federal taxpayer dollars on this care. The proposed rules are another potential path in early stages

We rate this promise In the Works.