The Trump administration is moving to block Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program from paying for puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries for minors with gender dysphoria, and a top Health and Human Services official says the policy is meant to protect children from lasting harm. Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Adm. Brian Christine backed the change on Tuesday, calling for mental health counseling and compassionate care instead of medical interventions for minors.
Christine, a urologist who oversees public health offices and programs within HHS and leads the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, said gender dysphoria is a real condition but argued that the diagnosis has expanded far beyond what he described as its historical pattern. He told Fox News Digital that the condition once affected only a small percentage of children and said the rise in diagnoses is not explained by simple epidemiology. He also said most minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria move beyond it when they receive competent, compassionate counseling.
The new rule does not outlaw the procedures outright. Instead, it ends federal financial support through Medicaid and CHIP for pediatric gender treatments. Christine said that approach reflects what he sees as the best available medical path for minors. He described hormone blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries as treatments that can permanently alter a young person’s body and lead to life-long complications. He said the preferred response is “corrective care,” a term he used to distinguish his view from what supporters call gender-affirming care.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said in a Tuesday statement that the administration is following the science, saving taxpayer dollars and protecting children from potentially irreversible harm. President Donald Trump also weighed in on Truth Social, calling gender transition surgeries and hormones for minors “barbaric.” He said the federal government will not pay for what he described as harmful procedures on children.
Christine pushed back on the language used by supporters of youth gender treatment, saying that “mutilating surgeries” and “castrating chemicals” do not affirm anything. He argued that the science supports mental health care and counseling, not medical treatment for minors. He also said the issue has been taken over by ideology and pointed to a sharp increase in diagnoses among minors, especially young girls, as evidence of a broader social trend rather than a purely medical one.
