DOJ continues efforts to end gender transitions for minors, wins settlements from hospitals 

Six hospitals have agreed to stop providing medical interventions – including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries – for sex transitions in minors in various settlement agreements with the Department of Justice since May.

The DOJ announced the two most recent agreements with New York University Langone Hospitals (NYU) and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) in a press release Sept. 18. Both hospitals agreed to stop the procedures and pay fines as part of the resolutions, with NYU paying $8.5 million and UPMC paying $950,000.

“We appreciate that some of the nation’s largest and most prestigious hospital systems have agreed to cease harming minors under the guise of ‘gender-affirming care’ and agreed to pay for potential violations of federal law when they did so,” Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Brett Shumate said in a statement. “But I want to be clear: Our efforts and investigations into other providers are ongoing. Those that have broken the law and not resolved their potential liability will be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.”

The investigations follow an executive order from President Donald J. Trump and a report from the Department of Health and Human Services to protect minors from what the report calls the medical malpractice of so-called “gender-affirming care.”

In addition to NYU and UPMC, the DOJ has previously announced settlements with four hospitals across the country. Heartlander News reported the first settlement with Texas Children’s Hospital in May, followed by agreements with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in June, Connecticut Children’s Hospital in August and New York Mount Sinai Health System in September.

“The Department of Justice is fighting to protect our nation’s children and working tirelessly to reach agreements with hospitals to end so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for minors,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “Today’s resolutions send a clear message: Hospitals that target children in these practices and then fraudulently obtain payment for the procedures will be held to account.”

Blanche referenced the allegedly fraudulent conduct of many hospitals that miscode gender-transition procedures as other medical conditions to receive insurance and Medicaid funding. Dr. Kurt Miceli of the medical watchdog nonprofit Do No Harm previously told Heartlander News that medical personnel miscode gender interventions both to gain money and to advance LGBTQ ideology.

Psychological interventions for gender confusion are much better treatments for minors than medical interventions that harm children physically and emotionally, Miceli said. Often, the harm from medical interventions is permanent, Texas attorney Josh Payne previously told Heartlander News. Puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and “top and bottom surgeries” can result in infertility, cardiovascular issues, poor bone density and lifelong muscle and nerve pain, as previously reported.

Many patients who undergo these interventions later regret the irreversible results and return to the gender identity aligned with their biological sex, calling themselves “detransitioners.” Some of these individuals have supported a federal lawsuit against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which encourages medical providers to sell transition services to children and parents, according to previous reporting.

Dozens of lawsuits are pending nationwide against medical organizations and doctors over physical and psychological harms that the interventions allegedly caused, with a detransitioner attaining the first legal victory in February of this year in New York.

Federal legislative efforts against “gender-affirming care” include the Chloe Cole Act, which would hold clinics accountable and allow victims time to seek compensation; the STOP Act, which would ban gender-transition procedures for minors; and the PROTECTS Act, which would end taxpayer funds supporting transition procedures for minors. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, and Rep. Bob Onder, R-Missouri, are among the lead sponsors of these acts.

Despite the federal efforts against medical transitions for minors, 23 states still permit sex-transition interventions on minors, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation data tracker.

(Image credit: NYU Langone Medical Center/Wikimedia Commmons/Ajay Suresh)