Major DC children’s hospital stops gender transition services for minors

Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., has announced that it will no longer provide gender transition-related medical interventions. 

The web page for the hospital’s “Gender Development Program” displays a message for existing and new patients announcing the change, which will go into effect Aug. 30. 

“In light of escalating legal and regulatory risks to Children’s National, our providers, and the families we serve, we will be discontinuing the prescription of gender-affirming medications,” the message says. “Mental health and other support services for LGBT patients remain available. You are always welcome at Children’s National for your other medical needs.” 

“We know this change will have a significant impact on affected patients, families and staff. Our care teams are working directly with families of current patients to support them,” it adds, urging people with questions to contact the hospital directly. 

The announcement comes after the Justice Department on July 9 sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics involved in performing transgender medical procedures on children.

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The Trump administration said DOJ investigations include healthcare fraud, false statements and more.

“Medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology will be held accountable by this Department of Justice,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement at the time. 

It was not immediately clear if Children’s National received a subpoena. 

In late January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled, “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” which directed federal agencies to slash Medicare, Medicaid and other federal funding from providers offering so-called “gender‑affirming care” to patients under the age of 19. A federal judge in February issued a nationwide temporary restraining order, blocking the order while litigation filed by LGBTQ advocacy groups proceeds. 

Children’s National Hospital was among several hospitals that paused prescriptions, refills and medication to minors as a result of Trump’s order but later resumed such transgender services after the court intervened, according to The Washington Post. 

Since Friday’s announcement that the hospital would stop providing gender-transition services to children on Aug. 30, the Post obtained a message sent out to impacted families saying Children’s National teams “are available to assist you as you move forward” but will no longer evaluate patients for medication or monitor medications through labs such as blood work.

According to Trump’s executive order, “Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.” 

The order claims, “countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding,” and, moreover, “these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.”

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It adds that the U.S. “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.” 

Ben Takai, the board president of Metro DC PFLAG, which is involved in the lawsuit challenging Trump’s order, told the Post the change at Children’s National was sad, adding that “there are many ways to bully minority populations.” 

Children’s National asserts on its gender development program’s web page that “some young people feel, sense or know they are a gender different than the one they were assumed at birth.”

“They may live and dress in ways typical of another gender (gender non-conformity), and some may experience the need to live and be affirmed as this gender in some or all settings,” the hospital says. “This can be an urgent need, or for others, there may be experimentation and exploration. There are also some young people who show gender non-conformity in their everyday behaviors, but may not yet have the self-advocacy skills to discuss their gender identity and their gender-related needs.”

The hospital website says parental consent is required to provide “gender-affirming medical care” to a minor in the District of Columbia. The hospital also says it does not provide “gender-affirming surgery” for anyone under the age of 18 and does not provide hormone therapy to children before puberty begins.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in May released a report framing gender transition treatments for minors as risky and insufficiently studied. To treat pediatric gender dysphoria, it recommends replacing most medical interventions with “exploratory therapy.” The report says that the “gender-affirming” model of care “includes irreversible endocrine and surgical interventions on minors with no physical pathology.”

“These interventions carry risk of significant harms including infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications, and regret,” according to HHS. “Meanwhile, systematic reviews of the evidence have revealed deep uncertainty about the purported benefits of these interventions.” 

The report notes that the United Kingdom in December 2024 indefinitely banned puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria. Meanwhile, amid pressure from the Trump administration, the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, considered the largest public provider of “gender-affirming care” for children and teens in the U.S., announced earlier this month that it was closing by July 22.