Every so often, the federal government actually does something that makes ordinary Americans stop and say, “It’s about time.” This week, that moment finally arrived.
Under the Trump administration, the Department of Health and Human Services has taken decisive action against one of the most disturbing medical scandals of the modern era: the irreversible “transgender” experimentation being performed on children.
On Thursday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alongside Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, announced a sweeping federal crackdown on so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors. The announcement marks the strongest federal rejection yet of medical procedures that permanently alter children’s bodies under the guise of compassion.
HHS also released a formal declaration laying out the administration’s findings — and its conclusions could not be clearer.
After reviewing the available evidence, the department determined that these interventions are neither safe nor effective, are backed by weak or nonexistent evidence of benefit, carry serious and lasting risks, and fail to meet basic, professionally recognized standards of medical care.
The declaration explicitly states that:
“Sex-rejecting procedures for children and adolescents are neither safe nor effective as a treatment modality for gender dysphoria, gender incongruence, or other related disorders in minors.”
The policy defines “sex-rejecting procedures” broadly — and correctly — to include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions such as mastectomies, vaginoplasties, and other irreversible operations intended to make a child’s body resemble the opposite sex.
None of this should come as a surprise.
Anyone who passed a freshman-level biology course understands that pumping children full of powerful hormones or surgically altering healthy organs is not “care.” It is experimental medicine — and in many cases, outright medical malpractice.
Children are not lab rats. They are not ideological projects. And they are certainly not capable of giving informed consent to procedures that permanently sterilize them, damage their physical development, and lock them into a lifetime of medical dependence.
For decades, medicine has been guided by the principle primum non nocere — first, do no harm. These practices violate that principle at its core. They introduce irreversible, life-altering damage to minors who are often experiencing temporary confusion, psychological distress, or social pressure — not a lifelong medical condition requiring drastic intervention.
The administration’s move will now restrict the use of federal funds for these procedures, cutting off taxpayer support for what amounts to ideological child abuse disguised as health care. That is a critical first step — and one the executive branch is fully justified in taking.
But it should not be the last.
Congress must act to permanently end the classification of these procedures as “gender-affirming care” for minors. There is nothing affirming about sterilizing children, removing healthy body parts, or chemically disrupting normal development.
The United States should never have allowed this to happen in the first place. But now, finally, the federal government is drawing a line.
The sexual mutilation of children — driven by ideology, enforced by activists, and enabled by cowardly institutions — must end. And for once, Washington is doing the right thing.
