Children’s hospital halts transgender health care

Support services offered, medication not

Children’s National Hospital announced Friday due to “escalating legal and regulatory risks” the D.C.-based medical system will no longer provide gender-transition care for patients.

Effective Aug. 30, the hospital’s providers will discontinue the “prescription of gender-affirming medications,” according to a statement on the hospital’s website. Mental health and other support services will still be available, the statement says.

“We recognize the impact this has had on you and your family, and we are here to support you. Our care teams are available to assist you as you move forward,” reads a message the hospital sent to families that was obtained by The Washington Post. The note also says the hospital would no longer evaluate patients for medication or monitor medications through labs such as bloodwork.

The move comes after the Justice Department on July 9 said it had subpoenaed nearly 20 doctors and clinics that provide gender-transition care.

A Children’s National spokeswoman declined to say if the Northwest Washington hospital, a pediatric Level 1 trauma center, or any of its providers received a subpoena. A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Gender-transition care has been called lifesaving by patients and providers and is endorsed by most major medical associations. Certain medications give patients time to assess their situation before starting more intense interventions, such as hormones.

At Children’s National, the Gender Development Program does not provide gender-transition surgery for anyone under 18 and does not provide hormone therapy to children before puberty begins, according to the clinic’s website. Parental consent is required to provide gender-transition medical care to a minor in the District.

“The hospital is a vital resource, and I would never want anything to put that in jeopardy,” said Mary Raibman, the mother of a college student who received gender-transition care at Children’s National starting in 2018, but if the hospital continued offering care, “I don’t believe that they would have had to close. I believe they’re choosing not to stand up and fight. … This decision is really disgusting.”

Since January, the Trump administration has sought to restrict access to gender-transition care nationwide while also blocking the transgender community from high school and college sports, military service and legal protections.

Children’s National and other hospitals like it around the nation face pressure to limit or end such care or risk jeopardizing federal payments, including public insurance reimbursements to providers of all kinds of medical care, potentially costing them billions and forcing them to close.

A Children’s National spokeswoman declined to say how many patients will be impacted by the decision to halt care, or if it was related to pressure from the Trump administration.

Aggressive and sweeping rollbacks to transgender care and protections have become a key policy priority for the Trump administration. Early in the president’s second term, Trump signed an executive order seeking to cut Medicare and Medicaid funding to health providers that offer gender-transition care to people under 19.

Several hospitals across the country, including Children’s National, complied with the executive order and suspended care, halting prescriptions, refills and medication administration for transgender minors.

Days later, however, a court action blocked the president’s order, paving the way for providers to continue working with transgender patients. By Feb. 13, some hospitals, including Children’s National and the health care system affiliated with the University of Virginia, resumed care for existing patients.

Raibman said a monthly virtual support group with parents of transgender patients being treated at Children’s didn’t happen as expected Thursday, but she didn’t realize care would be curtailed in this way.

At 13, her transgender son was in a mental health crisis and confided in his parents that for years, while being raised as a girl, he had questioned his gender identity. His pediatrician immediately recommended the clinic at Children’s National and the family showed up, terrified about what this would mean for their child and his future.

“From the moment we walked in that door, I knew it would be okay,” she said.“I didn’t think, ‘Oh it’s going to be easy,’ but I thought, ‘It’s going to be okay. They were going to help up through this.’ (Today) my child is thriving. He’s an adult man, and he’s thriving, and it’s because of the care he received at Children’s National Hospital.”

As Raibman sees it, amid pressure from the Trump administration, Children’s and other hospitals that are ending care have decided trans children “are expendable.”

“And no one is expendable,” she said.

In the past five years, more than half of states have banned doctors from offering transition health care to minors, including medication. Yet most transgender children do not take medication to assist with their transition.

Ben Takai, the board president of Metro DC PFLAG, called the move from Children’s National very sad, but not surprising given the constant attacks on transgender rights. He said that organizations such as PFLAG, which joined the lawsuit challenging Trump’s executive order, will keep fighting for LGBTQ+ youth.

“There are many ways to bully minority populations,” Takai said. “This is one of those ways.”

Last month, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-transition care for minors, paving the way for more restrictions.