Children's National Hospital to stop prescribing puberty blockers, hormones to kids confused about sex

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, July 22, 2025

A prominent children’s hospital has announced that it will stop performing so-called gender transition procedures on minors as the Trump administration continues to make banning the body-deforming interventions a top priority. 

Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., announced in a "Message for Existing and New Patients" enrolled in its Gender Development Program that it will stop prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on Aug. 30. The hospital cited “escalating legal and regulatory risks” as the reason for its decision. 

National Review reported last Thursday that the Trump administration mandated that all hospitals that accept Medicaid and Medicare patients stop performing "sex trait modifications to minors." 

Children’s National had previously announced a pause in the prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to youth confused about their sex in late January, shortly after President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing it as “the policy of the United States" the government would stop using taxpayers' dollars to pay for the "so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another," which involves "destructive and life-altering procedures.”

At the time, Children’s National said it would stop prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to youth exhibiting gender dysphoria for the time being. The hospital added that it did not perform sex-change surgeries that remove a patient's healthy body parts. 

In his January executive order, Trump also directed the heads of executive branch agencies to “ensure that institutions receiving [f]ederal research or education grants" also stop performing said procedures. 

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a 400-page report detailing concerns about the long-term impact of such procedures on youth. 

“These interventions carry risk of significant harms including infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications, and regret,” the report stated.

The report also highlighted the findings of the Cass Review, which was commissioned by the U.K.’s National Health Service. 

The Cass Review determined that there is “no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”

In light of the Cass Review, the HHS adopted the position that performing sex-change procedures on minors was unethical “until and unless the state of the evidence suggests a favorable risk/benefit profile for the studied intervention” and “the researchers have wellgrounded confidence that the foreseeable ‘risks and burdens have been adequately assessed and can be satisfactorily managed.’”