Under Federal Pressure, More Gender Clinics Halt Procedures On Minors

Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times,

Mounting political, financial, and legal pressures are poised to put more youth gender clinics out of business - or could force them to scale back services.

During the first two months of 2026, about a half-dozen U.S. gender clinics announced they would pause or discontinue some treatment programs for minors, according to hospital announcements and news reports reviewed by The Epoch Times.

The curtailment trend, which began in 2021 when states began passing laws to ban medical interventions on minors, picked up steam last year when President Donald Trump issued a wide-ranging executive order to guard against what he calls “surgical and chemical mutilation” of children—procedures that advocates refer to as “gender-affirming care.” 

A wave of clinic closures and increased restrictions followed, buoyed by a mid-2025 Supreme Court ruling that upheld Tennessee’s statewide ban on medical transitions for minors. And this year, in a landmark verdict, a New York jury awarded a woman $2 million in a gender-transition medical malpractice case; many similar cases are pending.

Within days of the Jan. 30 decision, two major medical organizations—the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Medical Association—recommended delaying transition procedures until adulthood.

Several clinics that ended some gender treatments last month emphasized that mental health services would remain unaffected.

University of Utah Health confirmed that it will “discontinue hormonal transgender treatment for all patients under the age of 18, effective April 15, 2026,” an emailed statement said.

NYU Langone Health released a statement last month in which it cited a hospital leadership change and “the current regulatory environment” as reasons for stopping its Transgender Youth Health Program.

New York state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez said she considers those treatments “essential healthcare” for minors, according to a statement released Feb. 18, following NYU Langone’s closure decision.

Gonzalez headed a group of more than 70 New York state lawmakers who signed a letter two days later urging the hospital to reverse its decision.

The New York Attorney General’s office on Feb. 25 ordered NYU Langone to resume gender services within 14 days.

NYU Langone Health in New York City on March 16, 2020. Cindy Ord/Getty Images

In the neighboring state of Massachusetts, Baystate Health announced it would no longer prescribe hormones and puberty blockers to minors, but said it would transfer patients’ care to other providers.

Baystate emphasized, “Our Gender Health program is not closed. We continue to provide supportive care, mental health services and education regarding medical and non-medical treatment options.”

And in the Midwest, Children’s Minnesota announced in early February that the hospital would “temporarily pause” prescriptions of “puberty-suppressing medications,” along with hormones for patients under age 18 in its Gender Health program. The change, posted on the hospital’s website, took effect Feb. 27.

It happened because of “an increase in federal actions” against hospitals providing gender-transitioning procedures, Children’s Minnesota said.

Further, the hospital said it “remains committed to advocating for the patients and families and stands firmly behind the fact that gender affirming care is evidence-based and lifesaving for transgender and gender diverse youth.”

Children’s Hospital Colorado and Denver Health both suspended the treatments, the Colorado Sun reported Jan. 2.

The Epoch Times was unable to independently verify reports that additional clinics had also restricted or ended youth gender transition programs earlier this year.

Battle Far From Over

Despite these increasing restrictions, the medicalized gender-transitioning of minors is not screeching to a standstill in America.

Dr. Eithan Haim, a general surgeon who nearly went to prison for exposing youth gender-transitioning at a Texas hospital, doubts the clinics are genuinely backing away from gender ideology.

Dr. Eithan Haim (R) leaves the Bob Casey United States Courthouse after an arraignment hearing in Houston on June 17, 2024. Haim, a Texas surgeon, exposed alleged illegal gender transition surgeries in 2023. Yi-Chin Lee/File/Houston Chronicle via AP

He believes their public announcements are intended to appease federal officials enough to keep federal dollars flowing. Without that money, most hospitals would be “insolvent,” he said.

“These hospitals aren’t, you know, having a ‘come-to-Jesus’ moment—that they realize this thing is wrong,” he said.

Scott Newgent, a female who regrets undergoing masculinizing procedures as an adult, has spent at least seven years fighting against medical transitioning of minors. Newgent says attacking that issue is like playing “Whac-A-Mole;” when one problem is beaten down, another pops up.

Newgent and Haim say factors seem to be lining up to discourage gender-transitioning of minors. But the two crusaders suspect that advocates of gender transitioning will find ways to keep the procedures going, regardless of how the current battles turn out.

Mental Health

Proponents of so-called gender-affirming ideology counter that treatments such as puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries are “essential,” “medically necessary,” and even “life-saving.”

The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund has accused federal officials of advancing “a cruel and unlawful anti-trans agenda” by seeking to restrict or eliminate the procedures for minors.

And in a Facebook post last month, Human Rights Campaign said, “Gender-affirming care SAVES LIVES. The Trump administration is attacking medically necessary care for trans and non-binary youth, recklessly putting their lives in danger.”

Advocates make such claims based on assertions that transgender youth may commit suicide if they are denied the treatments.

But in May 2025, a Health and Human Services report found insufficient evidence to support contentions that the procedures improve mental health.

The report concluded the procedures carry risks that seem to outweigh possible benefits—findings that advocates such as The Trevor Project, an LGBT suicide-prevention organization, dispute.

In December 2025, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited his agency’s findings and said that “sex-rejecting procedures for children and adolescents are neither safe nor effective” to treat gender-related disorders in minors.

Kennedy’s declaration is important because it could lead to providers being excluded from federal programs—and therefore cut off from funding.

In response, 19 states and the District of Columbia sued over Kennedy’s declaration.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen facilities are facing extra federal scrutiny based on Kennedy’s declaration.

Mike Stuart, Health and Human Services general counsel, referred those clinics and hospitals for further investigation. He alleged “failure to meet recognized standards of health care” for minors’ gender-related treatments.

Advocates Push Back

Despite mounting obstacles, transgender advocates are continuing to push back against federal actions, including  proposed rules that would block use of Medicaid or Medicare dollars for children’s “sex-rejecting procedures.”

That term conveys “the unnatural and disruptive nature” of puberty blockers, wrong-sex hormones, and surgeries, according to the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

The American Academy of Pediatrics opposes the federal rules, denouncing them as a “baseless intrusion into the physician-patient relationship.” The academy also continues to call the procedures “gender-affirming care.”

People walk past a sign for an American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) conference in Anaheim, Calif., on Oct. 8, 2022. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

And in February, the academy sued the Federal Trade Commission over its probe of alleged “deceptive” practices related to youth gender treatments.

From 2016 to 2020, about 3,700 adolescents aged 12 to 18 underwent surgeries for gender dysphoria, Kennedy’s statement noted. Gender dysphoria is a disconnect between a person’s biological sex and gender self-perception.

During a five-year span ending in 2021, more than 120,000 children, ages 6 to 17, were diagnosed with gender dysphoria; more than 17,000 of them were treated with puberty-blocking drugs and/or hormones, he said.

Kennedy also said that, as of early 2023, an estimated 271 youth gender clinics existed in the United States; about 70 of them went “inactive” because of state legislation.

In August 2025, a smaller medical society, the American College of Pediatricians, estimated that only about one-third of the nation’s estimated 100 “major” youth gender clinics were still open.

It was unclear how many of the clinics have closed since then. The Epoch Times found multiple reports of clinics quietly discontinuing services by sending letters to patients’ families; some, however, did issue public statements. 

As the warring factions continue to spar over how to treat gender-dysphoric youths, Newgent, the transition-regretter, and Haim, the whistleblower doctor, both gave warnings.

Newgent said people who are desperate to continue treatments may resort to online providers or buy medications on the black market.

Haim said unscrupulous providers could use fraudulent diagnosis codes to get insurers to cover procedures that otherwise would be excluded from coverage.

The fight over transgender medicine reform is fierce,  he said, with opponents “throwing up roadblocks” at every step.

Still, Haim said he is optimistic that permanent changes in youth treatment can take hold.

At the same time, he cautioned, “The only reason things are changing now is because of pressure from the Trump administration. If that changes in 2028 with the new administration, everything is going to go back to what it was.”