OAN Staff Blake Wolf
11:24 AM – Thursday, December 18, 2025
The federal government announced measures to end transgender treatments for children, aimed at protecting minors from what the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) refers to as “sex-rejecting procedures,” by effectively defunding hospitals offering the treatments.
On Thursday, DHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unveiled the measures in a press conference, revealing that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will enforce a new rule preventing hospitals from offering treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone treatments, or surgical procedures on minors, should they wish to continue participation in Medicare or Medicaid programs.
Kennedy Jr. also revealed that Medicaid funds would be prohibited from covering transgender treatments for children, effectively ending the practice even in Democrat-run states.
“Under my leadership, and answering President Trump’s call to action, the federal government will do everything in its power to stop unsafe, irreversible practices that put our children at risk,” Kennedy Jr. stated.
“This administration will protect America’s most vulnerable. Our children deserve better – and we are delivering on that promise,” he continued. “On my watch, HHS will stand for radical transparency and informed consent.”
“We follow the evidence. We employ gold standard science. We honor the moral obligation to do no harm. There is divine worth in every person. It shines most brightly in our children that was commanded us to protect them.”
Kennedy Jr. also signed a declaration on Thursday, finding that transgender treatments for children are not up to professional medical standards based on a November peer-review report finding that medical procedures to change a minor’s biological sex introduce severe long-term risks.
The study warns that “practitioners who perform sex-rejecting procedures on minors would be deemed out of compliance with those standards.”
In his Thursday speech, Kennedy Jr. argued that practitioners who perform the sex-rejecting procedures “betrayed their Hippocratic Oath to do no harm.”
“So-called gender-affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people. This is not medicine. It is malpractice. We’re done with junk science driven by ideological pursuits, not the well-being of children,” he added.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that could imprison health care providers for providing sex-rejecting procedures to children.
The bill, titled the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which was sponsored by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), would introduce Class C felony charges for practitioners who perform sex-rejecting procedures, such as surgeries or puberty blockers, with penalties of up to ten years.
The bill passed in the House by a vote of 216-211, and it is unclear whether the Senate will vote on the measure, as the bill is unlikely to secure enough Democrat support to clear the final Congressional hurdle to become law.
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