The Trump administration just cut off every federal dollar funding child sex-change surgeries and hormone treatments.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Tuesday it will no longer pay for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgical procedures on children through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The directive takes effect immediately as a final rule — meaning it has the force of law.
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz didn’t mince words about why.
“These dangerous procedures can result in irreversible damage, including infertility, impaired sexual function, diminished bone density, altered brain development, and other lasting physiological effects.”
President Trump celebrated the move on social media, calling the surgeries and hormone treatments “barbaric.”
“Medicaid will NO LONGER fund gender transition surgeries or hormones for minors,” Trump wrote. “We are not going to pay for our innocent children to undergo these barbaric surgeries and practices, which result in unthinkable and irreversible harm to their young bodies.”
Trump pointed to dozens of U.S. hospitals that have already ended so-called “gender-affirming care” for children under pressure from his administration over the past year and a half.
“While the Dumocrat Party wants your kids to be able to chop off their reproductive organs before they are old enough to vote, President Donald J. Trump (ME!) and the Republican Party say that is ABSURD, and we will protect America’s children,” Trump added.
The Department of Health and Human Services conducted its own peer-reviewed report on the medical interventions. HHS found “evidence gaps, documented serious safety concerns, and concluded that the evidence supporting these interventions for children remains insufficient to justify federal taxpayer funding.”
The agency described the procedures as “experimental and life-altering sex-rejecting procedures that carry serious long-term health risks and lack sufficiently reliable evidence of clinical benefit.”
CMS cited the landmark Cass Report from the United Kingdom, which exposed the international transgender movement’s push to mutilate and chemically castrate children as having hollow scientific backing.
Even the World Professional Association for Transgender Health — the biggest promoter of transgender ideology globally and author of the “standards of care” for how doctors should treat patients claiming to be the opposite sex — now admits in court that its standards are just opinions.
WPATH previously claimed to be the primary authority on the subject. The medical community enforced WPATH’s standards as the only legitimate response to children with gender dysphoria, requiring an “affirmation only” approach and advocating castrating and mutilating children as early as possible.
Now the organization is claiming in court that it merely represents one side of an unsettled medical debate. WPATH says its opinions operate in the realm of “medical and scientific uncertainty” and take shelter under “free speech.”
“Children deserve our protection, not experimental interventions that pose serious risks and convey no proven benefits,” Oz stated. “By cutting off federal funds for these sex-rejecting procedures, we’re following the science, saving taxpayer dollars, and, most importantly, protecting children from potentially irreversible harm so they can truly flourish.”
The final rule allows Medicaid and CHIP funding to continue for a six-month tapering-off period for children already on the drugs. Coverage of mental health services remains unaffected.
Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, praised the decision.
“President Trump has finally shut down the flow of Medicaid money into child gender transitions, and it’s about time someone in Washington put kids and families first,” Schilling said. “No hardworking American should be forced to bankroll irreversible hormones and surgeries that carve up healthy young bodies under the banner of a radical ideology.”
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 11, 2026
🚨 WPATH has conceded in court that its "Standards of Care" is merely an opinion. WPATH says it represents one side of an unsettled scientific debate marked by uncertainty — and physicains & orgs that rely on WPATH as the standard of care must bear "independent responsibility."/1 pic.twitter.com/BpL5vXnsII
— SEGM (@segm_ebm) August 11, 2026
