EXCLUSIVE: Children’s Hospitals Continue Offering Sex Changes After Trump Moved To Defund Procedures

Federally-funded hospitals are continuing to provide sex changes to children despite President Donald Trump’s executive order defunding those services, a Daily Caller investigation found.

More than three dozen hospitals that offer sex changes to minors and also receive federal funding told the Daily Caller that they are still providing services including puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, or surgeries to people under the age of 18.

A receptionist at Boston Medical Center told the Caller, “From what I’ve heard of, nothing has changed with what our providers provide” in light of the president’s executive order. A representative at Bay State Medical Center’s front desk similarly said, “I haven’t heard anything different,” when asked if they were still providing “gender-affirming care” — a euphemism for sex changes used by pro-transgender activists — for minors. The Bay State receptionist warned that parents looking to make appointments for their children should call early in the morning as they were getting a high volume of new patients.

President Trump signed an executive order Jan. 28 defunding medical schools and hospitals that participate in the “chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”

President Trump has signed an executive order defining female as “the sex that produces the large reproductive cell” & male as “the sex that produces the small reproductive cell” pic.twitter.com/35rPnwdIMf

— Pericles ‘Perry’ Abbasi (@ElectionLegal) January 21, 2025

“The head of each executive department or agency (agency) that provides research or education grants to medical institutions, including medical schools and hospitals, shall, consistent with applicable law and in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, immediately take appropriate steps to ensure that institutions receiving Federal research or education grants end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children,” the order reads. (RELATED: Trump Signs Executive Order Banning Federal Funding For Child Sex Changes) 

Some hospitals reached by the Caller confirmed that they are offering, in addition to puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy, surgical sex change procedures for minors or referrals to other hospitals that provide such services.

“For the top surgery, it looks like we are seeing patients 14 years of age and older,” a receptionist at the University of Minnesota Health told the Caller. 

In February, University of Minnesota President Rebecca Cunningham complained that recent reductions in federal funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were a “direct attack” on the university’s ability to do research, stating, “it has created fear and uncertainty across our community.” The school received $628.2 million in federal funding in fiscal year 2024, including $355.6 in NIH funding.

A representative for Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery confirmed to the Caller that they provide surgical procedures for youth looking to identify with a different gender, adding that there is no age cutoff for such procedures. “The doctor will decide,” the representative explained, noting that decisions about surgery are made on a “case-by-case basis.”

Children’s Hospital Colorado specifically cited lawsuits against Trump’s executive order as the reason they have resumed offering child sex changes.

“You have reached the True Center for Gender Diversity at Children’s Hospital Colorado,” a recorded voicemail message at Children’s Hospital Colorado said. “As a result of Colorado Attorney General joining the federal lawsuit filed in the state of Washington to block the executive order, Children’s Hospital Colorado will resume gender-affirming medical care, including puberty-blocking and hormone-based care.” 

Washington, Oregon, Minnesota and Colorado sued the Trump administration over the order and were granted a preliminary injunction from a Biden-appointed federal judge in Seattle on Feb. 28. In a separate lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, a Biden-appointed federal judge in Baltimore also issued a preliminary injunction and demanded the Trump administration continue providing federal funding to hospitals that provide child sex changes while the case proceeds.

The following hospitals, identified from a list of transgender health providers compiled by the Trans Health Project, all confirmed they are still offering “gender-affirming care” for minors when reached by the Caller: 

• Akron Children’s Hospital
• Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children
• Bay State Medical Center
• Boston Medical Center
• Brown University
• Cedars Sinai
• Children’s Hospital Colorado
• Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
• Children’s Hospital of Minnesota
• Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
• Cleveland Clinic
• Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
• Duke Health
• Grady Health
• Henry Ford Health
• Johns Hopkins
• Maine Medical Center
• MetroHealth
• Montefiore Medical Center
• Mount Sinai
• New York University Langone
• Northwell Hospital
• Oregon Health & Science University
• Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego
• Stanford University
• University of California San Francisco
• University of Florida
• University of Illinois
• University of Kansas
• University of Maryland
• University of Michigan
• University of Minnesota
• University of Rochester
• University of Utah
• University of Vermont Children’s Hospital
• University of Washington
• Whitman Walker Health

The University of Michigan’s medical center confirmed to the Caller that they are offering hormone replacement therapy for patients under the age of 18. Dr. Daniel Shumer, who directs the university’s Child and Adolescent Gender Services Clinic, was accused of committing plagiarism while giving testimony against Trump’s executive order prohibiting federal funds from going to schools that allow biological men to compete in women’s sports. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: State Lawmakers Alert DOJ To ‘Ethical Issues’ With Trans Advocate Fighting Trump’s Child Sex Change Order) 

Michigan Medicine said in a press release on Feb. 7, 2024 that they received $482.8 million from NIH in fiscal year 2023, making them the 11th-ranked school in federal research funding.

Other hospitals have opted to largely discontinue “gender-affirming care” in the wake of Trump’s order threatening to defund them.

A University of Virginia Board of Visitors resolution prohibited the hospital from accepting new patients for youth gender services, and a representative told the Caller that they are no longer offering medication to anyone under the age of 19.

Children’s National Hospital told the Caller that they are similarly not providing new hormone therapies, including refills of existing prescriptions, because of Trump’s executive order.

“We are able to, of course, continue to provide behavioral health resources to your family to help deal with some of those big emotions that you’re experiencing in these big changes,” a representative said. “Just a pause right now on, you know, being able to do those refills just until we get a little bit more of a sense of the environment and how we’re going to go ahead and continue.”

The representative noted, “I think, as a whole, hospitals are afraid of providers losing their license if they continue to do it under the executive order so … it’s the best guidance for the time being.”

The four-year “Cass Review” of the use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoric children in England found “weak evidence” that such treatments improve mental well-being and raised red flags about the long-term side effects of the medication. The National Health Service announced it would no longer prescribe puberty blockers outside of clinical research settings because of the report’s findings.

Tim Sekerak and Adriana Azarian contributed to this report