President Trump Signs Executive Order Banning Sex-Change Procedures for Minors
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order restricting “chemical and surgical” sex-change procedures for minors, labeling the trend “a stain on our Nation’s history.” The order, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” states that these procedures are based on the “radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions.”
The order declares that it is the policy of the United States to not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called “transition” of a child from one sex to another, and to rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these procedures.
The order specifically mentions that “chemical castration and medical mutilation” will not be funded, sponsored, promoted, assisted, or supported by the federal government. Trump said in a posting on Truth Social that it is his great honor to sign the executive order and that it directs agencies to use every available means to cut off federal financial participation in institutions that seek to provide these barbaric medical procedures.
The executive order has been praised by some, including Mark Trammell, the executive director and general counsel of the Center for American Liberty, who called Trump’s action “incredible leadership” in protecting vulnerable children from the “gender industrial complex.”
On the other hand, Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson criticized the order, stating that it is a “brazen attempt” to put politicians in between people and their doctors, preventing them from accessing evidence-based health care. Robinson emphasized that everyone deserves the freedom to make deeply personal health care decisions for themselves and their families, and that the executive order is a “pathetic” attempt to play politics with people’s lives.
This story is part of a growing trend of state-level bans on transgender medical treatments for minors. Over two dozen states have enacted similar bans, and the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in a high-profile case challenging a Tennessee law banning these procedures.