(Washington D.C.), Late last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order restricting “transgender” procedures on youth, including puberty blockers and surgeries such as mastectomies and penile reconstruction. In response, many medical providers including some of the top in the nation for performing them have announced they will comply with the EO.
The EO states that “it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
Last year, nonprofit Do No Harm unveiled a database reporting that between 2019-2023, there were 13,000 gender reassignment procedures performed throughout the nation on minors; those procedures included both surgeries and prescriptions. Among the top states in the nation for those procedures was Ohio, which has since enacted legislation banning such procedures.
The Center Square reached out to more than two dozen medical providers throughout the country based on data provided by Do No Harm regarding their total billing, prescriptions, and surgeries performed, asking them how they planned to respond to Trump’s EO.
Among those to announce they were suspending all procedures was Seattle-based UW Medicine, which stated in an email that it was “committed to supporting the clinical care needs and well-being of all our patients, as well as complying with state and federal law. We are currently in compliance and are also continuing to provide our full spectrum of services.”
Seattle Children’s Hospital ranked among the top in the nation for puberty blocker prescriptions; though it did not respond to request for comment, there have been reports that it has suspended those services, and its webpage for gender affirmation surgery has since been removed.
MultiCare Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital located in Tacoma wrote in an email that while it does not perform gender-affirming surgeries, “we are aware of the executive order that calls for an end to gender-affirming medical treatments for children and adolescents under 19 and are continuing to monitor the situation. Executive orders are directives to federal agencies on how they will operate. Much of what’s been issued has not yet become rules for us to evaluate.”
