Democrat attorney generals have urged doctors to keep providing gender affirming care to trans kids despite Donald Trump’s executive order against the treatment.
The president signed an executive order last month stating 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’.
The order axed federal funding to clinics providing treatment to minors in a bid to, ‘rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures’.
However, liberal AGs in California and New York have warned that pulling the plug on trans care services would violate state laws.
In the Golden State, Attorney General Rob Bonta reiterated California’s commitment to allowing trans youth to, ‘live their lives as their authentic selves’.
‘I understand that the President’s executive order on gender-affirming care has created some confusion,’ he said. ‘Let me be clear: California law has not changed, and hospitals and clinics have a legal obligation to provide equal access to health-care services.’
He pointed to a judge’s recent decision which blocked Trump from slashing congressional spending he disagrees with.
Bonta also noted that suspending gender affirming care would be a violation of California civil laws which forbid discrimination due to sexual or gender identity.
His warning comes after New York AG Letitia James made similar statements about the position in her state.
‘Regardless of the availability of federal funding, we write to further remind you of your obligations to comply with New York State laws,’ James wrote in a letter given to medical centers.
Her instructions came as several hospitals across the country said they were pausing gender-affirming care for youths in their service including facilities in Washington DC, Los Angeles, Virginia and Colorado.
On Monday, the White House said the executive order is already having its ‘intended effect’.
In the last couple of years, many states have taken steps to restrict or ban transgender care for people under age 18 and most states have faced lawsuits as a result.
Gender-affirming care can take the form of counselling, puberty blockers, hormone therapy or in some rare cases surgery.
Last year a study by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found little to no utilization of gender-affirming surgeries by trans children in the US.
Using data from 2019, the most recent set available, the study found no gender-affirming surgeries performed on trans youth ages 12 and younger.
For teens ages 15 to 17 the rate was 2.1 per 100,000 and researchers noted that cis gender children were significantly more likely to receive surgery to affirm their assigned gender.
Meanwhile, a study released last month found that fewer than one in 1,000 trans kids received any kind of gender affirming medication, with no prescriptions given to children under 12, PBS reports.
The research focused on a large insurance claims database covering more than 5 million patients aged 8 to 17 from 2018 to 2022. The database spanned all 50 states, but it did not examine those covered by Medicaid.