‘Weak evidence of benefit’: Child gender clinics are finally shutting down

Here’s some good news you may not have heard. From coast to coast, child gender clinics are shutting down, thanks to the leadership of the Trump administration. Children are safer because of these closures – protected from radical transgender ideology and the sex changes that threaten their bodies, minds, and futures.

The latest gender clinic to announce its closure is at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, which confirmed this news on July 23. Just one day earlier, the gender clinic at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles closed. The L.A. clinic was one of the first and largest in the country, subjecting hundreds of children to invasive and irreversible transgender treatments, including hormones and surgeries. Do No Harm, where I work, has documented nearly 20 gender clinics and programs either pausing child sex changes or shutting down since the start of the year.

This progress is the direct result of the Trump administration’s January executive order, which directed federal agencies to prohibit hospitals from getting federal funding if they provide so-called “gender-affirming care” to minors. In reality, such care is neither caring nor gender-affirming. It forces confused children to become something they’re not, because, as studies show, the vast majority of these kids wouldn’t try to change genders if they simply waited. Yet once they’re pushed down the sex-change road, they very often can’t fully go back, and they very often have lifelong physical and mental health complications.

Taxpayers should never be forced to support this medical and moral nightmare. Children should be able to develop naturally, especially those who are confused. They don’t need a dangerous cocktail of off-label chemicals or sex-change surgeries. Yet that’s what activists have long demanded, and medical associations and many providers largely gave into their demands instead of putting children’s health first.

To this day, the medical establishment is dominated by those activists, and they’re loudly lamenting the closure of these clinics. But they’re very clearly ignoring the evidence.

Look no further than the recently shuttered clinic at the Children’s Hospital at Los Angeles. The clinic’s leader, the famous transgender activist Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, became infamous last year when she refused to release the findings of her own taxpayer-funded study on gender-confused kids. She finally relented under pressure in May, and lo and behold, it turns out that puberty blockers aren’t associated with improvement in kids’ mental health. Dr. Olson-Kennedy’s own research undercuts the entire argument for child sex changes – that it will help them become healthier and happier with who they are.

The evidence is mounting that child sex changes are built on a foundation of lies – and incredibly dangerous to those who receive them. In June, a new study found that boys taking feminizing hormones are far more likely to have strokes and develop various cancers. In fact, they’re up to 40 times more likely to develop breast cancer. Other studies show that girls taking testosterone are in for a world of physical pain, as well.

The Trump administration has grounded its actions in this medical research, whereas the medical establishment has largely put radical ideology ahead of real evidence. That fact was on full display earlier this year, after the Department of Health and Human Services released its groundbreaking analysis of the state of medical research on sex changes for kids. The report concluded that there’s “very weak evidence of benefit” to kids, but there are “significant risks,” including irreversible harms like infertility. Rather than acknowledge reality, medical groups and hospitals rushed to condemn the report and defend their desire to continue endangering children’s health and well-being.

Thankfully, that danger is beginning to fade, now that child gender clinics are shutting down. But there’s more work to do when it comes to protecting children. The clinics and programs that have closed only account for about 13% of the child sex change treatments that Do No Harm has documented from 2019 to 2023 alone. Another 28% of children who suffered from this ideology lived in states that have since banned child sex changes. But that leaves a lot of states and hospitals that are still putting a majority of America’s children at risk.

The Trump administration shouldn’t rest until everyone who’s endangering children is held accountable – and every child in America is safe.

Kurt Miceli, MD, is a medical director for Do No Harm.