The Trump administration has finalized a rule stripping Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program of the ability to cover gender-affirming care for transgender people 18 and under, a policy advocates say will hit low-income families hardest once it takes effect in October.
What the Rule Actually Does
The policy comes from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, run by Mehmet Oz, and the Department of Health and Human Services under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It doesn't ban gender-affirming care outright, and it doesn't touch the broader HHS proposal to bar any hospital that takes Medicaid or Medicare money from offering the care at all, which has stalled since December. What it does is cut off the specific funding stream that low-income trans kids and teens depend on most, forcing states, providers or families to absorb the cost or watch care disappear.
There is still no federal law restricting gender-affirming care, and several states have laws explicitly protecting it. That legal gap is exactly what the administration keeps trying to exploit through funding rules rather than legislation, and it's why advocates argue this fight is far from over.
This is an incredibly dangerous rule.
Ma'ayan Anafi, National Women's Law Center
A String of Losses the Administration Wants to Avoid Repeating
This isn't the first attempt. Earlier this year, courts struck down the so-called Kennedy Declaration, in which Kennedy tried to unilaterally deem gender-affirming care unscientific and cut off providers who offered it. A federal judge rebuked him for
Source: The Guardian
Cover photo: Charles Criscuolo / Pexels
