Free Republic

The Trump administration is weighing cutting off funds to hospitals that it says provide gender-related treatments for children and teenagers, a move that would sharply escalate officials’ scrutiny of such programs. The potential for increased federal scrutiny on gender-related healthcare comes after a 30-day deadline passed Saturday for nine children’s hospitals to respond to letters from Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator and celebrity physician known as Dr. Oz. The former heart surgeon and television host demanded data related to sex-reassignment surgeries, hormone therapy and puberty blockers. “President Trump has been clear: America will protect kids...

UPMC has confirmed it will end gender-affirming care for patients 18 and younger in response to the Trump administration’s policies aimed at transgender youth. A spokesperson for UPMC, the region’s largest hospital network, said federal guidance has made it clear clinicians who provide care such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy run the risk of criminal prosecution. UPMC will continue to provide behavioral health support and other care “within the bounds of the law,” the spokesperson added. The spokesperson declined to say when care will end, but impacted families have been told June 30 is the cutoff.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, upholding Tennessee’s ban on medical gender interventions for children, reflects a split in the Justices’ views of medicine: Is it about restoring patients’ health or satisfying their wants? The court held last week that the Tennessee law permissibly distinguished between different medical uses of puberty blockers and hormones for children. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that medical treatments are defined not only by the drug used but by the purpose for which it is prescribed. Administering testosterone to a boy with delayed puberty is categorically different from...

The American Medical Association's new president Dr. Bobby Mukkamala said the ruling was "harmful government interference." The American Medical Association (AMA), the largest medical association in the United States, is coming out against the Supreme Courts ruling in United States v. Skrmetti, arguing that irreversible and damaging transgender procedures for minors are necessary treatments. “The American Medical Association is disappointed in today’s decision that opens the door to further intrusion into patient care and harmful government interference into the practice of medicine,” AMA President Dr. Bobby Mukkamala said in a statement after the ruling came down. The court ruled on...

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” CNN Political Contributor and Democratic strategist Paul Begala said that while he disagrees with bans on gender transitions for children, it’s “crazy” for states like California to keep schools from telling parents about their children transitioning. Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) said, “[T]his is one of the reasons why the Democrats are losing on an issue like this, because, again, if you can’t definitively tell — I have a six, a four, and a 2-year-old. My six and four-year-old, they think that they’re Anna and Elsa and my little boy thinks he’s Lightning McQueen....

Detransitioner Chloe Cole landed a final blow to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) after she threw an absolute hissy fit over the recent United States Supreme Court transgender ruling for kids.On Wednesday, SCOTUS upheld Tennessee's law barring "gender-affirming care" (including irreversible mutilation) for so-called "transgender" minors, which specifically rejected claims that "transgender" people are part of a protected class. Warren lost her ever-loving leftist mind and falsely claimed on X that "Trans kids suffer when they don't get medically necessary care. This is a brazen political decision by the Supreme Court. My heart is with trans kids and their loved ones....

The inside story of the case that could set the movement back a generation.One day last December, a clutch of dark-suited lawyers descended the steps of the Supreme Court to a hero’s welcome. The lawyers, from the American Civil Liberties Union, had that morning joined counterparts from the Biden administration in asking the court to block a Tennessee law that bars doctors from providing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery to young people who feel that their bodies are the wrong sex. In the plaza outside the court, L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy groups had turned out hundreds of supporters, who hugged, cheered...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, a jolting setback to transgender rights.

A report on the largest survey ever of trans Americans’ health was released on Wednesday, June 11, and its findings reaffirmed what many academics, health care providers and trans people already know: gender-affirming care saves and improves lives, but transphobia often dissuades people from pursuing or continuing it when they need it most. Over 84,000 trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming people aged 18 and up responded to the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey, spearheaded by Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE). Of respondents who had transitioned, 9% had gone back to living as their sex assigned at birth at some point in...

The Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s law banning child sex change procedures on Wednesday. In a 6-3 ruling, the court held that Tennessee’s law does not violate the Equal Protection clause. “This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound. The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements.” “Having concluded it does not, we leave questions regarding its policy to...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Tennessee law prohibiting transgender drugs and surgeries for children, a major win for conservative activists and parent groups. The court ruled 6-3 in United States v. Skrmetti that Tennessee’s law does not violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti defended the law before the High Court in December, saying it was a matter of “protecting kids from the consequences of decisions that they cannot fully understand.”

In a decision that plunged the Supreme Court into yet another culture war feud, the justices on Wednesday upheld a Tennessee law banning all gender affirming care for minors. In the last few years, fully half the states have adopted similar bans, leaving the other half, so far, allowing gender affirming care in the form of at minimum, hormone treatments prior to a teenager turning 18. The vote was 6-to-3, along conservative/liberal lines.

In a total capitulation to the Trump Administration, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles announced last week that it is shutting down its notorious clinic that foisted sex change procedures on minors. The announcement marks an abrupt shift for the Children’s Hospital, which had earlier seemed inclined to fight the Trump Administration in court over its threat to cut off funding to any hospital that provides so-called gender affirming care for youths.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. Recently we have had two contrasting phenomena. One is that President Donald Trump had issued an executive order suggesting or maybe threatening K-12 sports programs—and indeed, college and higher education as well—that if they allowed biological men to compete in women’s sports, then he was going to consider cutting off federal funds for that. The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now But at the same time he did it, the number of transgendered women—that is biological men who have transitioned to supposedly women—has increased...

Jeff Younger did everything a father could do to save his son. He fought like hell in court. He pleaded with judges. He went public. And still, his ex-wife, a radical leftist pediatrician with no biological tie to the child, was given full authority to chemically castrate their son, James, and transition him into “Luna.” James was just 8 years old. In court, Anne Georgulas admitted she conceived James and his twin brother, Jude, using in-vitro fertilization with a donor egg. She carried the pregnancy, but genetically, she isn’t the boys’ mother. That didn’t matter to the court. Ideology did....

It’s been a while since Americans could actually sit back and enjoy June. Now, instead of bumping into rainbows in every aisle and choking on the colored logos of every conceivable brand, there’s some freedom from the suffocating fumes of Pride Month. In these last two years, the march to pull companies back to neutral has outperformed everyone’s expectations. But in this process of rolling back decades of corporate wokeism, one thing is clear: this isn’t over. No matter how much success conservatives have, not everyone will go quietly. When it comes to LGBT activism, some businesses are playing for...

MSNBC’s Katelyn Burns took to dramatic fearmongering on Wednesday that the ‘big, beautiful bill’ would kill trans-identifying individuals.In an article griping about President Trump’s plan to keep Medicaid from paying for transgender hormone injections, MSNBC repeated the debunked falsehood that lack of access to so-called “gender-affirming care” will cause people to die.The “one big, beautiful bill,” which passed the House and is making its way through the Senate, would prevent taxpayer dollars from funding opposite-sex hormones for adults and minors. But MSNBC’s Katelyn Burns, a freelance columnist who proclaims the title “the first openly transgender Capitol Hill reporter in U.S....

“Let’s keep this our little secret,” child predators sometimes tell their victims. This apparently was the attitude, too, of a Nevada official who was hiding youth “trans” castration surgeries from parents. This man was also using a loophole to get Medicaid (our tax dollars) to pay for the sexual-distortion treatments (SDTs).This time, however, the dark secret has been brought to light, by an undercover operation by O’Keefe Media Group (OMG). As that organization reported Friday (note: the official, being woke, uses the wrong pronouns to identify a cited youth):Deshaun Eli Mack, a Family Services Specialist with the Nevada DHHS [Department...

How Does Gender Affirming Surgery Work? In this informative video, we will provide an overview of gender affirming surgery, a vital aspect of transgender healthcare. We will break down the various types of surgeries available for individuals transitioning to align their physical bodies with their gender identities. From feminizing surgeries for trans women to masculinizing surgeries for trans men, each procedure is tailored to meet the unique needs of the individual. Additionally, we will touch on options available for non-binary individuals, highlighting the diversity of choices in this area.

Defending Education is taking parental rights to court, suing the state of Colorado over its outrageous and arguably unconstitutional new groomer law. You might remember the recently passed Colorado legislation to fund castration of “trans” kids with taxpayer dollars and in spite of parents' wishes, to mandate pro-trans policies in schools, to criminalize “deadnaming,” and to take supposed “misgendering” into account in custody cases. Defending Education, an organization that stands for parents and against woke indoctrination in schools, is suing the Democrat-run state over the extremely harmful legislation. Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, Protect Kids Colorado, Do No Harm, and Dr....