WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. denounced “chemical and surgical sex-rejecting procedures” during a press conference Thursday announcing a ban on taxpayer funding for doctors conducting them.
Kennedy accused the gender clinicians of betraying “the estimated 300,000 American youths ages 13 to 17, conditioned to believe that sex can be changed,” and violating “their Hippocratic oath to do no harm.”
“This is not medicine — it is malpractice,” the HHS secretary declared. “We’re done with junk science driven by ideological pursuits and not the well-being of children.”
In a signed declaration Thursday, Kennedy proclaimed the procedures “neither safe nor effective treatment for children with gender dysphoria.”
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed rules barring hospitals receiving federal funds from “performing these dangerous and harmful procedures,” he added.
Kennedy also said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning “to 12 manufacturers of breast binders” to stop marketing the products to children with gender dysphoria.
If they don’t comply, the manufacturers may face enforcement actions that include “product seizures,” he warned.
The US Department of Health and Human Services released a report last month that found studies supporting so-called “gender-affirming care” were “low quality” and did not address possible long-term psychological and quality-of-life effects stemming from the procedures.
At least 10 experts and research groups later reviewed the Nov. 19 report, titled “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” and found no major faults in its findings that doctors should prefer psychotherapeutic interventions to surgical or chemical ones.
President Trump mandated the report via an executive order in May.
The UK banned the use of puberty blockers and sex-reassignment surgeries for minors in 2024.
