Under mounting federal pressure from the Trump administration, an increasing number of U.S. gender clinics are halting transgender procedures on minors, marking a significant victory for child protection and biological reality.
As of March 1, 2026, at least 15 major facilities, including those at Kaiser Permanente, Stanford Medicine, and several children’s hospitals, have quietly stopped offering puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries to those under 18.The shift follows Trump’s executive orders and HHS directives that threaten to withhold Medicare and Medicaid funding from institutions performing these experimental treatments.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has labeled them “chemical and surgical mutilation,” emphasizing the lack of long-term evidence for benefits and mounting risks of irreversible harm, including infertility, bone loss, and regret. Medical groups like the American Society of Plastic Surgeons have also voiced “substantial uncertainty” about youth gender medicine, aligning with jury verdicts awarding millions to detransitioners.
Hospitals cite legal liabilities and ethical concerns as reasons for the halt, with some like Seattle Children’s and UCSF ending programs entirely. This retreat exposes the dangers of transgender activism that rushes vulnerable children—often with underlying issues like autism or trauma—into life-altering decisions. “No child should be subjected to these barbaric experiments,” said Family Research Council’s Mary Szoch. “Federal action is restoring sanity to medicine.”