Dr. Oz Says Life-Saving Gender-Affirming Care for Minors Should be ‘Prehistoric Relic’
Similar to how the Big Beautiful Bill pulled Medicaid funding from nonprofits offering abortion services, the administration now wants to pull funding from any hospital offering care for trans kids.
Photo: Screenshot Politics
On Thursday, the Trump administration’s medical villains announced a two-part plan that would pull federal funding from hospitals if they offer any kind of trans-affirming care to minors, which includes puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and top/bottom surgery. This administration’s obsession with trying to erase the transgender community is baffling.
Speaking at a news conference about the announcement, the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called gender-affirming care “malpractice,” and Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said the procedures should be a “prehistoric relic” that “fall[s] in the deepest abyss of dark periods of American history like prefrontal lobotomies represent today.” (There are nearly 2.8 million people who identify as trans in the U.S., and about a quarter of them are between the ages of 13 and 17.) The nightmare duo also said HHS sent warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers for companies that sell and market breast binders for minors because binders “are not benign.”
The new proposed rules would 1) ban doctors and hospitals from getting Medicaid reimbursement for providing gender-affirming care to minors, and 2) pull all Medicaid and Medicare funding from any hospital that provides gender-affirming care to minors. And while trans care for minors is already banned in 27 states, this proposal would have devastating effects across the entire country.
“Personal medical decisions ought to be made between patients, their doctors, and their families–not through a one-size-fits-all mandate from the federal government,” added Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, Senior Vice President of Public Engagement Campaigns of the Trevor Project. “The multitude of efforts we are seeing from federal legislators to strip transgender and nonbinary youth of the health care they need is deeply troubling.”
It’s a similar playbook to Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which pulled Medicaid funding from any nonprofit offering abortion services in a backdoor attempt to defund Planned Parenthood. Since Trump signed the bill into law, Maine Family Planning—the only source of medical care for thousands of Mainers—has had to eliminate primary care at three of its 18 clinics, and Planned Parenthood has been forced to close 20 of its clinics.
The administration has previously kicked trans people out of the military, deleted any mention of trans people on federal websites, and sued states with trans high school athletes. This latest move, however, would revise Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (which restricts any discrimination in federally funded programs), and “begin a rulemaking process” to bar hospitals from performing “sex-rejecting procedures on children.”
Only 1% of the US population is trans, but they’re on MAGA minds 100% of the time
— Jamie Bonkiewicz (@JamieBonkiewicz) December 17, 2025
Pretty much no medical group agrees with the proposal, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American Hospital Association, and former HHS officials have all condemned it, with the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) saying, “Unprecedented actions and harmful rhetoric taking place today by HHS leaders mark a concerning departure from the longstanding principle that healthcare policy should be grounded in scientific evidence, clinical expertise, and the needs of children and families.”
“These targeted attacks on trans youth are shameful,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, also told Jezebel in a statement. The ACLU also announced on Thursday that it will sue the Trump administration for the unconstitutional move.
The HHS move comes one day after the House voted 216-211 on a bill introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to make gender-affirming care for minors a federal felony and punishable with up to 10 years in prison. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that Tennessee’s ban—or any state ban—on gender-affirming care is not sex discrimination.
Dr Oz: “The creation of a penis costs on average in America $150,000 per child … if you add testicles, that’s extra”
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 18, 2025 at 11:36 AM
“This is not medicine, it is malpractice.” RFK Jr. said at the news conference. “We’re done with junk science driven by ideological pursuits.” But junk science driven by ideological pursuits is precisely how I’d describe the government’s approach to both just gender-affirming care and reproductive rights. In September, the Trump administration said it was officially launching an unnecessary review into the abortion pill mifepristone, though the FDA Commissioner is reportedly delaying the process until after the 2026 midterms. In September, Trump baselessly connected Tylenol, pregnancy, and autism (a claim that RFK has since said he’s trying to “make the proof” for) and, in October, Dr. Oz added “underbabied” to our medical encyclopedia.
“Everyone in this country should have access to the care they need to stay healthy, including transgender and nonbinary young people,” Heng-Lehtinen continued. “It’s no hyperbole to say that restricting this medically necessary care risks the lives of transgender and nonbinary youth in communities all across the U.S.”
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