The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched an investigation into Seattle Children’s Hospital over its alleged provision of gender-affirming care to transgender minors, a practice the Trump administration has aggressively sought to end.
In a post on X, the HHS official account said the hospital had been referred to the Office of the Inspector General for “failure to meet professional recognized standards of health care” under a declaration issued on December 18 by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., according to The Hill.
The declaration claims that gender-affirming health care — including hormone treatments and surgeries — is “neither safe nor effective” for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria, and warns doctors and hospitals that they could be excluded from federal health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid if they provide those treatments to minors.
As reported by NPR, HHS’s declaration largely based its conclusions on a peer-reviewed report from earlier this year that advocated steering dysphoric youth toward behavioral therapy rather than treatment with puberty blockers, hormones, or surgical interventions. The report contested standards issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and raised concerns that adolescents are too young to consent to treatments that could result in future infertility.
HHS has also proposed two new regulations aligned with the declaration: one barring federal Medicaid funds from covering transition-related care for transgender youth under 19, and another stripping federal funding from hospitals that treat transgender minors for gender dysphoria.
A coalition of 19 states and the District of Columbia has sued HHS over its stated intent to strip funding from practitioners and hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to transgender minors.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, alleges that the declaration is factually inaccurate and unlawful, and seeks to block HHS from enforcing it.
“Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the lawsuit, said in a statement.
Neither HHS nor Seattle Children’s Hospital has commented publicly on the investigation.
Seattle Children’s Hospital has previously faced scrutiny from conservative officials over its treatment of transgender adolescents. In 2023, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a subpoena seeking records related to Texas patients who received gender-affirming care at the hospital. The dispute was later resolved after the hospital agreed to withdraw its business license in Texas.
On at least four occasions, federal judges have quashed DOJ subpoenas seeking personally identifiable information about transgender youth who sought care at gender clinics in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington State. Other hospitals, including Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, Colorado, are engaged in similar legal fights over DOJ subpoenas, with rulings still pending.
Congressional lawmakers have approved a measure that would bar Medicaid -- the federal health insurance program for low-income Americans -- from covering gender-affirming care, including hormonal and surgical interventions, for minors.
The "Do No Harm in Medicaid Act," sponsored by U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), is the third in a series of Republican-backed efforts to block people under 18 from accessing medical treatments that assist in a gender transition.
The measure passed by a 215-201 vote, with four Democrats -- Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Don Davis (N.C.) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) -- joining Republicans in support of the ban.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted largely along party lines to advance a bill that would imprison doctors for providing gender-affirming care to transgender minors and punish parents who consent to their child’s treatment.
The bill, introduced by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), would impose prison sentences of up to 10 years on medical providers who recommend or prescribe puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or surgery to transgender patients under 18. It would also criminalize parents who consent to their child’s treatment or transport them across state lines to obtain such care.
Federal Judge Victoria Calvert has permanently blocked a portion of Georgia’s law banning prisoners from receiving gender-affirming care, ruling on Dec. 3 that the state’s blanket ban on hormone therapy violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Signed by Gov. Brian Kemp in May and implemented in July, the law bars prisoners from receiving hormone therapy or other treatment for gender dysphoria -- even when a doctor deems it medically necessary. It prohibits the state from funding such care and blocks transgender inmates from paying for it themselves. Non-transgender prisoners, however, may still receive hormone therapy and other gender-affirming treatments so long as the care is not related to gender transition.
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