American Medical Association reaffirms support for trans health care after controversial statement

The American Medical Association (AMA) reaffirmed its support for gender-affirming care and said media outlets that reported a change in its policy (including LGBTQ Nation) misinterpreted a recent statement from the organization.

AMA’s March 2026 newsletter devoted a section to the debacle and explained that it all started in February when Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, held a meeting for the leaders of the nation’s major medical organizations to discuss why they all endorsed medical interventions for trans teenagers.

Sources told the Times that Dr. Oz’s tone was measured, rather than hostile, but that it was clear he hoped to sway the organizations away from supporting gender-affirming care for young trans people. At the meeting, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) reportedly shocked everyone by announcing it was indeed changing its stance on gender-affirming care.

The ASPS announced the change in its stance publicly on February 3, releasing a statement advising against conducting “gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery” on people under the age of 19. The ASPS based its statement on two recent reports from the U.K. and the U.S. that were widely criticized by transgender healthcare advocates as being biased.

Surgical interventions, however, are already almost never performed on minors. Trans minors don’t receive bottom surgery, though some teenagers who meet certain rigid requirements get top surgery or facial procedures.

The AMA newsletter explained that once ASPS released its statement, the AMA’s Executive Committee of the Board met to craft a statement to provide to probing media outlets.

“During our Board discussion, we were clear that we were not changing AMA policy,” the newsletter said, emphasizing that the statement was exclusively to be used if media outlets contacted the organization, rather than preemptively.

“While some media coverage characterized this as agreement with the ASPS statement, that phrasing did not come from the AMA,” the newsletter continued. “Unfortunately, how reporters frame their stories is beyond our control.”

The newsletter emphasized that the statement did not reflect a policy change or an endorsement of ASPS’s policy change: “AMA policy on gender-affirming care is unchanged. Our recent response to questions about ASPS’s position statement was intended to preserve—not diminish—access to gender-affirming care, and to clarify and reinforce what our policy has long reflected and standards of care. The AMA supports gender-affirming care as medically necessary per our policy.”

The language in AMA’s initial statement sowed chaos because it does state: “In the absence of clear evidence, the AMA agrees with ASPS that surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.”

But because gender-affirming surgery is already rare for minors, it seems AMA is trying to say it was merely reaffirming the position it has always held, which is that it supports non-surgical interventions for minors and, in rare cases, surgical ones.

At the time the ASPS walked back support for gender-affirming care, and many at least believed AMA did, too, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released its own statement emphasizing it still fully endorses gender-affirming care. “The AAP continues to hold to the principle that patients, their families and their physicians — not politicians — should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them,” the statement read, according to the New York Times.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) also spoke out: “There is no definitive age or one-size-fits-all approach for every patient, which is why they are built on case-by-case assessments, involve experts on adolescent development, and are designed to support thoughtful and ethical shared decision-making in a multidisciplinary field.”

Recent studies have shown that trans youth tend to be consistent in their identities, even after a decade. The findings mirror what has overwhelmingly been found in studies on trans adults, that very few people detransition. A 2024 study found that 97% of trans youth don’t regret transitioning, and another study from the same year showed that fewer than 1% of patients who undergo gender-affirming surgical procedures end up regretting it. In fact, rates of regret are higher for people who get tattoos, elective plastic surgeries, bariatric weight loss surgeries, or have children, the study found.

March 28, 2026 0

First puberty blockers, now hormones: England’s NHS bans more gender-affirming drugs

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

This week, England’s National Health Service (NHS) threw up yet another roadblock to gender-affirming care for transgender youth in the UK.

On Monday, the NHS announced it was pausing new referrals for feminizing and masculinizing hormones for 16- and 17-year-olds suffering from gender dysphoria, citing a collection of studies commissioned by the health service after publication of the controversial Cass Report in 2024, the Guardian reports.

That study recommended “extreme caution” initiating hormone treatments, including estrogen and testosterone, and a “clear clinical rationale for providing hormones at this stage rather than waiting until an individual reaches 18.”

The new NHS report comes to a similar conclusion.

“Following the Cass review, NHS England commissioned an in-depth review of all available clinical evidence for using estrogen or testosterone either alone or with other medications to treat gender incongruence and dysphoria,” the report states. “This review has established that the available evidence does not support the continued use of masculinizing or feminizing hormones to treat gender incongruence or dysphoria for young people under 18.”

The Cass Review, which contradicted long-established guidance around the efficacy of gender-affirming care for trans youth, has already prompted the health service to halt prescriptions of puberty-suppressing drugs for trans youth, with an indefinite ban for trans minors enacted by the UK government in December 2024.

The UK’s Health Secretary cited an “unacceptable safety risk” for halting new prescriptions of the drugs, though puberty blockers are still prescribed for early onset puberty and other conditions for children not suffering from gender dysphoria.

Puberty blockers, or GnRH analogues, slow down or halt the onset of puberty in young people taking them, and have preceded and been accompanied by the use of estrogen or testosterone for gender transition.

The positive effects of that combination therapy were all but ignored in the new NHS review, say critics of the decision to halt new prescriptions.

The Dutch Protocol, the “gold standard” for transition care, “involves prescribing GnRH analogues (puberty blockers) first to suppress puberty, then adding hormones later,” writes trans journalist Erin Reed in a story questioning the report’s findings.

“When hormones are introduced, the GnRH analogues are sometimes continued alongside them — the blocker keeps suppressing the body’s natural hormones while the prescribed estrogen or testosterone does its work. This overlap period means patients are on both GnRH analogues and hormones at the same time. That is the ‘combination therapy’ the reviews claim to examine.”

But the reviews “inexplicably excluded every study” where GnRH analogues and feminising and masculinising hormones were taken in succession or combination. The review tossed out hundreds of such studies in favour of a “salami slicing” approach that examined the hormones in isolation.

NHS was explicit in its methodology.

“Any reference to GnRH analogues in the context of puberty suppression or used as puberty-suppressing hormones must be excluded,” the report states.

“NHS England’s own data, cited in the reviews themselves, confirms that 98% of its patients followed the very pathway every review was designed to exclude,” Reed writes.

She called the NHS evidence reviews “an extreme example of politically-manufactured science.”

Gender Plus, a leading private trans healthcare and education service in the UK, accused NHS England of ignoring clinical expertise and evidence provided by leaders in the field, including the Endocrine Society, which recommends introducing the hormones for trans youth once “persistence of gender incongruence has been confirmed and the young person has sufficient capacity to consent.”

“NHS England’s interpretation of the evidence is in contrast to every reputable expert body in the field of transgender healthcare,” said a spokesperson for the health group.

NHS said patients currently receiving hormone treatments can continue the therapy, “but this will need to be reviewed individually with their clinical team.”

“Banning new prescriptions of gender-affirming hormones for 16- and 17-year-olds is a profound attack on young people’s bodily autonomy,” said Tammy Hymas, policy lead at British advocacy organization TransActual, “with trans people yet again cruelly singled out by this government.”

March 17, 2026 0

17 states consider cutting assistance for HIV meds as prices increase

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

States across the U.S. have either implemented or are considering measures that limit access to life-saving medications for tens of thousands of low-income people living with HIV. The moves, experts warn, are likely to lead to economic and public health crises.

According to new data published this week by the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD), 17 states and D.C. have already taken steps to cut costs for their AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAP), while five others are considering similar measures.

Since 1996, federally funded ADAPs have helped low-income, uninsured, and underinsured people afford HIV and AIDS medication, primarily through federal grants via the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990.

But as NASTAD’s report notes, “Federal funding for ADAPs has remained relatively unchanged over the last decade, while client enrollment and healthcare costs, including prescription drug, insurance premium, and cost-sharing expenditures, have continued to increase.” According to nonprofit health policy research group KFF, congressionally allocated funding for ADAPs “has not kept pace with inflation, even before accounting for enrollment growth and increased costs.”

According to both NASTAD and KFF, the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits for the purchase of insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces is another key factor driving up costs for ADAPs.

“Effectively, programs are being asked to do more with less federal funding,” Lindsey Dawson, associate director of HIV policy at KFF, told the New York Times.

That has led to 10 state ADAPs reporting budget deficits for the current fiscal year, while 19 ADAPs expect to face deficits in the upcoming fiscal year, according to NASTAD.

NASTAD reports that five states — including Pennsylvania, Kansas, Delaware, and Rhode Island — have already lowered income eligibility for the ADAP.

By far the most drastic change took effect in Florida on Sunday. The state’s move to reduce income eligibility for its ADAP from 400% of the federal poverty level to 130%. That means people living with HIV in Florida who make more than approximately $20,500 annually — down from around $64,000 prior to the change — are now ineligible to receive ADAP assistance for medication that can cost more than $5,000 per month. By one estimate, 16,000 people living with HIV in Florida are now at risk of losing access to HIV/AIDS medications.

Other states, including Arkansas, Louisiana, New Jersey, Virginia, and Washington, are similarly considering changes to financial eligibility criteria. Others have or are considering other measures, including reducing formularies (the list of drugs covered), annual spending caps, restricting or ending health insurance assistance, and implementing recertification requirements that will likely lead to disenrollment, according to KFF. NASTAD reports that Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Jersey are also considering implementing waitlists for assistance.

Such cost-cutting measures “could leave growing numbers of people with HIV ineligible for safety-net services,” according to KFF.

Esteban Wood, director of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which is suing to block Florida’s ADAP changes, warned the New York Times this week that the changes represented not only a “moral disaster,” but would likely lead to both public health and economic disasters. HIV medications not only keep people living with the virus healthy, they also make it essentially impossible to transmit it, and cutting off access to those meds will inevitably lead to an increase in new infections. The Times also notes that if people begin rationing their pills, the likelihood that the virus becomes resistant to medication increases.

The untold costs of such outcomes will have to be absorbed by other parts of the U.S. public health system, according to the Times.

March 3, 2026 0

Republican TX AG bans “radical” mental health workers from affirming trans youth: It’s “child abuse”

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has declared that it is illegal for mental health care providers licensed by the state to affirm trans youth and that doing so is child abuse.

The virulently anti-trans official issued the opinion on Monday to explain that the state’s gender-affirming care ban applies to mental health care as well. In a press release, Paxton’s office referred to the practice of affirming someone’s gender as “‘transitioning’ our kids.”

“Any radical facilitating the ‘transitioning’ of our kids is committing child abuse,” Paxton said in a statement. “The law is clear that these radical procedures are illegal and in no world should Texans’ tax dollars be used to permanently harm children. This opinion should send a clear warning there will be consequences for any medical professional, whether a doctor or a therapist, who is illegally ‘transitioning’ Texas kids.”

Trans news site Transitics said the opinion can be interpreted as essentially requiring mental health professionals to either refuse to see young trans patients or else engage in conversion therapy. The opinion states that therapists have an obligation to help children with “overcoming” an “underlying… condition,” which in this case is gender dysphoria.

“Even if they want to, they can no longer affirm a trans kid’s identity, offer alternatives in another state, or encourage parents to accept their kids for who they are,” Aleksandra Vaca at Transitics explained. “Under Paxton’s opinion, doing anything other than push a child to accept being their assigned sex at birth will result in providers losing their license and/or being imprisoned. This is conversion therapy, which is recognized by the United Nations as being tantamount to torture.”

Paxton has spent his tenure as attorney general terrorizing the trans community. In 2022, he issued a non-binding opinion calling gender-affirming health care a form of child abuse, which led Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to order the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate for child abuse any parents who allow their trans children to access gender-affirming medical care prescribed by their doctors.

In a post at the time, Paxton called gender affirming care and puberty blockers – which have been shown to reduce lifetime suicide risk for transgender people who have access to them before puberty – “monstrous and tragic.”

Paxton has also argued it should be legal to discriminate against trans people at work, and he once tried to force a school to cancel its Pride week. He has sued for the right to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students, sued a group that highlighted the rise in hate speech on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, and sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to force it to inspect every athlete’s gender before allowing them to play.

He has also said consensual encounters between consenting same-sex adults should be illegal, and that state workers can deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Paxton was previously impeached by the Texas House in 2023 for 16 counts of bribery but was later acquitted by the Texas Senate. The FBI also investigated him for years for securities fraud, but the Department of Justice eventually dropped its investigation. He also settled a state securities fraud case against him, paying $300,000 and participating in community service to avoid legal charges.

In July, it came to light that his wife filed for divorce from him due to adultery.

Paxton told his staff about an extramarital affair in September 2018 while holding hands with his wife, The Texas Tribune reported. But while he recommitted to their marriage during that confession, he continued to cheat on her, the publication reported, even going through great lengths to hide affairs from her: using burner phones, secret email addresses, and secret rideshare accounts to meet with his mistress.

March 3, 2026 0

Ken Paxton sues Children’s Health and Dallas doctor for allegedly providing transgender youth care

Adult trans patients left reeling after Massachusetts hospital cancels vaginoplasties without explanation

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Trans women in Massachusetts may be suffering the effects of the Trump administration’s campaign to erase transgender identity from American society, but their hospital won’t confirm or deny it.

Several trans women scheduled for vaginoplasties with a highly regarded doctor specializing in the gender-affirming procedure were informed over the last few weeks that their surgeries had been cancelled and they wouldn’t be able to reschedule them, WGBH reports.

“I’m crushed. I can’t stop crying,” said one patient identified as Avery, who used a pseudonym. “This surgery was life-changing because it finally gives me the body that’s right for me. It has been ripped away with no explanation or follow-up plan.”

Avery’s hospital is UMass Memorial Health in Worcester, Massachusetts, and her surgeon is Dr. Ashley Alford, who introduced an innovative vaginoplasty technique never before used in New England. The surgery involves utilizing abdominal tissue and robotic technology to create a more realistic and functional vagina than other common procedures produce.

Avery had spent months preparing for the surgery, including a switch to a more expensive insurance plan that would cover the procedure.

Then it was cancelled. Avery said she pressed hospital staff for answers and learned that all of Dr. Alford’s appointments had been cancelled. She received no other explanation.

Among the six patients of Dr. Alford’s that were interviewed, all said they’ve received calls in the last two weeks canceling their appointments at UMass; more are identified in a subreddit devoted to the situation, which one describes as “unbelievably confusing.”

Despite the abrupt cancellations, the UMass health system says it’s not curtailing gender-affirming care.

“Although appointments may at times need to be canceled or rescheduled due to the availability of a specific provider, nothing has changed in UMass Memorial Health’s commitment to providing comprehensive, evidence-based health care, including gender affirming care, to all members of our community,” the statement read.

Dr. Alford had no comment on the nixed appointments and procedures.

The second Trump administration has issued a wave of orders curtailing the rights of transgender people, including attempts to end gender-affirming care for minors (early with his executive order addressing so-called “Child Mutilation”) and later, in December, an announcement from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that any hospital providing gender affirming care for minors would lose Medicare and Medicaid funding.

UMass’s abrupt cancellations of surgeries for trans adults conjure a nightmare scenario for older patients reliant on gender-affirming care.

Chrissi Bates, an advocate for transgender healthcare and Alford’s first patient to undergo the advanced vaginoplasty procedure, sees a hidden hand behind Alford’s sudden unavailability.

“We all love Dr. Alford. We all doubt that it’s her that wants to leave,” said Bates, who planned on seeing Alford for post-op appointments. “It’s really disheartening to hear that UMass is just caving to this unjust kind of healthcare agenda that’s being pushed by the Trump administration.”

Most of all, the UMass patients in Worcester want answers.

“If it is Dr. Alford being pushed out due to concerns from the Trump administration, who’s to say that’s not going to happen in Boston?” said Kara Earp, a North Carolina transplant who moved to Massachusetts just for the gender-affirming care. Her appointment with Alford was cancelled, as well.

“I probably won’t actually be happy until I wake up from surgery and it’s all over with,” she said.

February 17, 2026 0

Wisconsin pediatric hospitals end gender-affirming care, risking health of trans youth

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Two of Wisconsin’s largest pediatric hospitals have stopped providing gender-affirming care for transgender youth, Wisconsin Public Radio reports.

Children’s Wisconsin and University of Wisconsin (UW) Health have ended the treatment for minors, after pressure from the Trump administration. Advocates say the end of gender-affirming medical care will lead to negative mental health effects for trans youth.

In a statement, Children’s Wisconsin cited “escalating legal and federal regulatory risk” facing providers across the nation as the reason it is “currently unable to provide gender-affirming pharmacologic care.” The hospital added that LGBTQ+ children should be treated with “support, respect, dignity, and compassion.”

The hospital will continue to offer mental health services for patients and families.

In December, the Department of Health and Human Services, under the direction of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced plans to end all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.

“Under my leadership, and answering President Trump’s call to action, the federal government will do everything in its power to stop unsafe, irreversible practices that put our children at risk,” Kennedy said, announcing the funding threat. “This administration will protect America’s most vulnerable. Our children deserve better — and we are delivering on that promise.”

In reality, gender-affirming medications for young people are considered by every major American medical association to be safe, reversible, and essential to the well-being of trans youth.

UW Health said its hospital system will pause prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapy for patients under 18 years old “due to recent federal actions.” The hospital remains committed to providing “high-quality, compassionate” care to LGBTQ+ patients, officials said in a statement.

“We recognize the uncertainty faced by our impacted patients and families seeking this gender-affirming care and will continue to support their health and well-being,” they said.

Steve Starkey, executive director for OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center in Madison, said the consequences of ending the care will be grave.

“It will definitely have a negative impact on the rates of suicide, and the mental health of the trans community” in general, he said. “It affects trans adults as well, because it’s like an attack on all trans people.”

Starkey pointed to rates of suicide and suicidal ideation, which are already high for the trans community.

A 2023 study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law found that more than 80% of trans adults had suicidal thoughts, while more than 40% had attempted suicide.

“For trans people of all ages, being able to express themselves in the gender that they feel that they are is important for their mental and physical health,” Starkey said. “By not allowing trans people to do that, to have the support, it just means that they are not able to be wholly who they are.”

In the last week alone, hospitals and clinics in Orange County, Riverside, and San Diego, California — and in Tacoma, Washington too — announced plans to shutter gender-affirming care programs for trans youth.

Those closures follow dozens of other hospitals and healthcare facilities ending the care under threats from the Trump administration, in the form of funding cuts or investigations initiated by the Justice Department, even before last month’s federal funding ultimatum.

A year ago this week, Trump issued an executive order vowing to end what he called the “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children with gender-affirming care. Republicans have used these terms to outrage people and vilify medical providers of the care, but puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapies don’t “mutilate” kids, and gender-affirming surgeries are rarely (if ever) conducted on minors.

A protester at Children’s Hospital of Orange County this week described the same care as life-saving.

“I’m a transgender woman, and I’m here to tell you that denying people this gender-affirming care doesn’t make gender dysphoria go away,” Stephanie Wade, chair of Lavender Democrats of Orange County, told LAist. “All it does is make it metastasize into suicidal depression. And I’ve been there. I dealt with this as a child. We can’t take this away from kids.”

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860) is staffed by trans people and will not contact law enforcement. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for youth via chat, text (678-678), or phone (1-866-488-7386). Help is available at all three resources in English and Spanish.

February 3, 2026 0

Missouri Supreme Court upholds ban on gender-affirming care for minors

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Missouri’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors this week, along with a prohibition on Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming care for anyone in the state.

As the Missouri Independent reports, the court’s unanimous decision upholds a 2024 circuit court ruling in a case challenging Senate Bill 49. The law, signed by Gov. Mike Parson (R) in 2023, bans minors from accessing any form of gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and surgeries. It also bans the state’s Medicaid program from covering gender-affirming care for people of all ages.

The challenge against the law was brought by Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Missouri on behalf of three families of transgender young people, medical providers, and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, who argued that the law should be subject to heightened scrutiny, a more rigorous legal standard applied to cases involving the classification of individuals by specific characteristics like gender.

According to the Missouri Independent, the state Supreme Court rejected that argument, as had the lower court. While plaintiffs had argued that the law discriminates on the basis of sex and transgender status, Judge Kelly Broniec wrote in the court’s decision that S.B. 49 “classifies only based on medical use and age.”

The court’s reasoning echoes that in the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year in United States v. Skrmetti, which held that Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth does not discriminate on the basis of sex or transgender status.

As the Missouri Independent notes, Supreme Court precedent allows lawmakers broad discretion when it comes to issues “fraught with medical and scientific uncertainty.”

While for decades there has been broad scientific consensus — including among all major American medical associations — that gender-affirming care is safe, evidence-based, and often lifesaving for minors experiencing gender dysphoria, conservative organizations and some American media outlets have made massive strides in recent years in sowing doubt about that consensus.

While lawyers for the plaintiffs put forth multiple expert witnesses to defend gender-affirming care for young people during the 2024 trial, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office faced serious questions about the credibility of some of its key witnesses.

In September, Lambda Legal attorney Nora Huppert argued that the lower court’s decision upholding S.B. 49 included “legal and factual errors.” But writing for the Missouri Supreme Court this week, Broniec nonetheless said that the state had “demonstrated the ongoing debate among medical and ethical experts regarding the risks and benefits associated with the treatments at issue.”

The court also rejected arguments that the Medicaid ban violates Missouri’s constitution, with Broniec noting that adults in the state can still pay out-of-pocket to receive gender-affirming care.

Gillian Wilcox, director of litigation at the ACLU of Missouri, responded to the decision saying that it “not only allows the state to target transgender Missourians access to health care but also leaves everyone’s health care options at the whims of politicians, should certain care ever fall into the political arena.”

January 30, 2026 0

Florida Republicans want to jail pharmacists as two new bills targeting gender-affirming care advance

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Two bills in Florida advanced out of committee last week that would give the state attorney general more power to investigate and press felony charges against health care professionals who provide gender-affirming care in the state, including against therapists who discuss gender issues with minor patients and pharmacists who fill prescriptions that may be used as gender-affirming care.

Last week, the Criminal Justice Subcommittee passed H.B. 743 in a 12-5 vote, Florida Politics reports. The bill would allow state Attorney General James Uthmeier to sue health care practitioners for up to $100,000 per violation for providing gender-affirming care to minors. Mainstream medical organizations support gender-affirming care for trans kids because it has been shown to be life-saving and safe.

S.B. 1010 would make it a felony for doctors, school counselors, or psychologists to advise minors on gender-affirming care or “aid or abet” another health care professional in helping minors get gender-affirming care. The bill gained near-unanimous support from the state senate’s Committee on Children, Families, and Elder Affairs, according to the Florida Phoenix.

If that version of the bill passes, medical professionals could get a $100,000 fine per violation and up to five years in prison.

Florida banned gender-affirming care for trans youth in 2023. Supporters of the new bills say that they are necessary to further crack down on gender-affirming care in the state for “biblical” reasons.

“We have to uphold the principles and standards that made this country great, biblical, constitutional law, and order at all costs. And sometimes that stings,” state Rep. Taylor Yarkowsky said at last week’s hearing.

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Lauren Melo (R), stressed that pharmacists would be punished under her bill, something she says is necessary because, she claimed, health care professionals are “committing fraud” by prescribing gender-affirming care medications but recording the purpose of the medications as something other than gender-affirming care.

“What we’re seeing is there’s coding that’s actually being used that is becoming the problem, and hundreds of thousands of dollars is spent per child for them to transition and codes are being misrepresented where they are saying that it’s an indoctrination disorder instead of saying it’s a gender identity disorder,” she said.

Democrats stressed that the bill could have unintentional side effects. State Rep. Kelly Skidmore (D) said that the bill is not about gender-affirming care but is being pushed by state Attorney General Uthmeier to expand his power.

“It is about giving one individual and maybe his successors authority that they don’t deserve and they cannot manage,” she said, referring to Uthmeier’s involvement in the Hope Florida scandal, where state Republicans are accused of laundering money and committing fraud. “They’ve proven that they cannot be trusted. This is a terrible bill.”

State Rep. Mike Gottlieb (D) said that doctors might be scared from prescribing hormonal medications to people with severe menstrual symptoms lest a pharmacist misinterpret the reason for the prescription.

“You’re going to see doctors not wanting to prescribe those kinds of medications because they’re now subject to a $100,000 penalty,” he said. “We’re really not considering what we’re doing and some of the collateral harms that it’s having.”

Behavioral health care professional Savannah Thompson told WUSF that the bill would make it more difficult for doctors to even talk to trans patients.

“This could increase the feelings of fear from my clients who are under 18, but it also can increase the likelihood that these professionals won’t be able to talk with their clients, honestly and openly, to give them the care and the support that they deserve and need,” she said.

January 27, 2026 0

GOP lawmakers in Utah to “permanently” ban gender-affirming care even after their own report supported it

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz (R) says his Republican majority intends to permanently ban gender-affirming care for minors this year. The move comes more than seven months after the release of a Utah Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) report, mandated by a Republican-backed state law, which found that medical evidence actually supports access to gender-affirming healthcare for minors, a different result than many conservatives were hoping for.

Utah already has what former state Rep. Mike Kennedy (R) — who now represents the state’s third district in Congress — described to Deseret News as a “permanent” ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Passed in January 2023, S.B. 16 banned gender-affirming surgeries for minors — despite such surgeries being exceptionally rare — and instituted an indefinite moratorium on providing puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to minors for the purposes of gender-affirming care.

Kennedy, who co-sponsored S.B. 16, admitted to Deseret News that characterizing the law’s ban on puberty blockers and HRT as a “moratorium” was essentially a tactic to win over lawmakers who wanted more data on the effects of such treatments. The ban, he said, is already effectively permanent unless Utah lawmakers act to lift it.

S.B. 16 also ordered the state DHHS to commission a review of medical evidence around puberty blockers and HRT prescribed for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors, with the goal of lawmakers using the report’s findings to inform future policy decisions.

That review, conducted by the University of Utah’s Drug Regimen Center, was released last May, and as Mother Jones reported at the time, its conclusions “unambiguously” supported the benefits of gender-affirming care for trans young people.

However, Utah Republicans, including Schultz, Kennedy, and state Rep. Katy Hall — who co-sponsored S.B. 16 — have dismissed the report.

“Common sense is common sense,” Schultz told Deseret News. “I don’t need a report, one way or the other, to tell me that. I just firmly believe that minors should not be transitioning.”

At the same time, however, Schultz told the outlet that he agrees with a separate review of the DHHS report by anti-trans advocacy group Do No Harm. The group’s review, published early last month, claims that the DHHS report does not meet the standards of a true systematic review of medical evidence, according to Deseret News.

“Unlike true systematic reviews, it does not assess the reliability of studies and whether the research can provide guidance for weighing the risks and benefits of medical intervention for children with gender dysphoria,” Do No Harm’s report claims.

Deseret News — which is owned, through a subsidiary, by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — also notes that the Utah DHHS review’s findings contradict those in both the Cass Review and one released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last year. Both of those reviews have been widely criticized.

A spokesperson for University of Utah Health defended the Utah DHHS review, telling Deseret News in a statement that it was based on “an extensive body of research regarding the safety and efficacy of these treatments.”

“Our review also found that the consensus of that evidence is that the treatments are safe in terms of changes to bone density, cardiovascular risk factors, and metabolic changes; and they are effective in terms of positive mental health and psychosocial outcomes,” the statement read, according to Deseret News.

January 10, 2026 0