Trump Strikes Blow Against Gender Experiments on Minors

National Review Online

Friday, September 25, 2026

 

Thanks to the Trump administration, some medical facilities are stopping their dangerous gender experiments on distressed children. This is encouraging news, but the battle is not over.

 

The New York Times reports that at least six major hospitals have acquiesced to pressure from the Trump administration and agreed to stop providing “gender-transition treatment” to minors, although they have not formally admitted to wrongdoing. The hospitals have also agreed to pay fines, and some will provide services free of charge to former patients who wish to detransition or manage side effects. According to an announcement from the Department of Justice this month, two of the nation’s largest health-care systems — New York University Langone Hospitals and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center — have agreed to cease offering puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, and gender-related surgeries to minors. The resolution is reportedly similar to those previously reached with Mount Sinai Health System in New York, Texas Children’s Hospital, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and Connecticut Children’s Hospital. The Advocate, an LGBTQ-themed paper, reports that the hospitals have agreed to pay at least $24 million combined in the settlements.

 

“My office’s foremost priority is protecting children. The resolutions announced today reflect the close collaboration across the Department of Justice and our continued commitment to ensuring that minors are safeguarded,” Ryan Raybould, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said in a press release issued by the DOJ. “These investigations are ongoing, and my office will continue to follow the evidence, act decisively when the well-being of minors is at stake, and fully pursue wrongdoers who have broken federal law.”

 

Somehow, doctors believed that the kids who were too young and too underdeveloped to consent to sex were capable of agreeing to a “sex change.” The patients who signed papers and underwent the procedure for a needless double mastectomy would have faced more difficulty trying to get a tattoo.

 

But why did it require pressure from the Trump team for these hospitals to stop performing these harmful practices? The science is clear: Large-scale reviews conducted in both the United Kingdom and the United States found that there is shockingly poor evidence to suggest that “gender-affirming care” is a safe and effective treatment for minors. On the contrary, the data are piling up that show these interventions cause nothing but harm. The consequences from these medicalized “treatments” include infertility, sexual dysfunction, weakened bone density, cardiovascular disease, and a range of other devastating, lasting side effects — some of which are irreversible. The public testimonies from children and adults explaining their lasting health problems from these traumatic interventions, as well as the lawsuits against the wicked doctors who provided the services, are growing steadily.

 

Even in the absence of comprehensive scientific reviews, nobody should have ever believed the absurd idea that people could change sexes. There was never a single compelling argument that a minor, or even an adult, should receive extensive hormonal therapies or mutilating surgeries as an attempt to reconcile their physical appearance with their self-perception of being “born in the wrong body.”

 

While we welcome these recent settlements with hospitals, we are aware that these injurious services are still widely available and easily obtained. In fact, some Planned Parenthoods currently advertise that “in most cases your clinician will be able to prescribe hormones the same day as your first visit” and “no letter from a mental health provider is required.” The Justice Department has done admirable work by reforming these major medical providers, and we encourage further investigations. But if just one clinic or hospital is offering cross-sex hormones as part of a “gender transition” regimen for minors, then it is one too many.