Children’s hospitals nationally end transgender surgeries on minors amid Trump rules

Several children’s hospitals across the country that have performed transgender surgeries on minors are halting the procedures in response to President Donald Trump’s executive actions and his administration’s regulatory changes.

Hospital systems and individual hospitals in California; New York; Washington, D.C.; Colorado; Illinois; Pennsylvania; and other states have announced changes in recent weeks in how they treat children who believe they are the opposite sex. Some transgender clinics are shutting down entirely.

One prominent clinic that performed these operations — the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles — shut down on Tuesday, July 22. The clinic is facing an ongoing lawsuit from a formerly transgender-identifying woman who alleges that doctors fast-tracked her into a hormonal and surgical gender transition beginning when she was only 12 years old.

The clinic’s medical director, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, also faced scrutiny last year for allegedly blocking the publication of a taxpayer-funded study because the results failed to find any mental health benefits for children who are given transgender drugs, according to the New York Times.

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