The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency with the US Department of Health and Human Services, is reportedly planning on stopping Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement payments to hospitals that perform sex change operations on minors.
National Review broke the story on Thursday, 7 August. However, what hurts the credibility of their scoop is that they claimed that CMS would make the announcement later that day, which they never did.
In their article, they refer to an unnamed ‘senior official’, who has told the news site that the rule would be called ‘Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Hospital Condition of Participation: Prohibiting Sex Trait Modifications for Children’; and if put into effect, it would ‘effectively end sex-trait modifications for minors nationally’.
‘The rule essentially says that a hospital cannot get funding from Medicare or Medicaid for any of their services if they participate in child mutilation. In short, the concept is that hospitals cannot participate in Medicare or Medicaid if they provide sex trait modification services to minors, full stop,’ the National Review quotes another unidentified source inside the HHS (unclear if it is a different person or the person cited before).
While the rule was not officially announced on the day NR reported it would, a number of hospitals across the United States have already cut back on sex change treatments on minors, such as prescribing hormone blockers or performing genital surgeries. The article lists 19 hospitals where they claim to have knowledge of restricting such treatment, from Yale New Haven Health in New Haven, Connecticut, to Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California.
In June 2025, the US Supreme Court upheld the state of Tennessee’s local ban on sex change treatment to minors as constitutional, in the case United States vs Skrmetti.
Currently, 26 states in the Union have bans in place on sex change treatment to minors—some only ban surgeries, while some ban both surgeries and hormone treatment. Unsurprisingly, these are states with either a Republican governor in office, or with a Democrat governor but with a large Republican majority in the state legislature (in Kentucky and North Carolina). The only exception to that is Arizona, a state with a Democrat governor, and only a slight GOP majority in the State Senate and House.
Passing a national ban on sex change treatment to minors, however, is nearly impossible even with the Republican trifecta across the House, Senate, and the White House, as it would likely never clear the 60-vote filibuster-proof threshold in the Senate. That is why the Trump administration is looking for alternative ways to cut down on the controversial medical practice.
Democrats are still willing to fight for sex change for underage people, despite it being a widely unpopular position nationally. For example, on Thursday, 7 August, the popular X account Libs of TikTok posted a clip of former Democratic Speaker of the House and current California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi advocating for that to a reporter.
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