Latest news with #gender transition
Fox News
7 days ago
- Health
- Fox News
Major Connecticut hospitals begin 'winding down' youth gender programs citing 'evolving landscape'
Connecticut Children's Medical Center and Yale New Haven Health are the latest hospitals to begin "winding down" their gender transition program for minors, recent statements revealed. On Wednesday, Connecticut Children's Medical Center President and CEO Jim Shmerling said in a statement, "In recent months, we have been carefully reviewing the long-term sustainability of our gender care program in light of an increasingly complex and evolving landscape, thoughtful consideration and guidance from medical and legal experts, we have made the difficult decision to begin winding down this program for patients under the age of 19." "This process is being carried out in a deliberate and planful way, with ongoing communication and support for the families and team members directly involved. It continues to be an evolving and fluid situation," he continued. Shmerling also said the hospital is currently taking patients on a "case-by-case basis" to "ensure that every child's needs are considered with compassion, clinical judgment, and care." A webpage for Connecticut Children's Medical Center's gender program has since been taken down. A version of the page recovered from the Internet Archive in May showed that the center previously offered prescriptions for hormone therapy and puberty blockers for patients who have already experienced puberty with an evaluation letter from a mental health professional. On Thursday, Yale New Haven Health followed suit with its own statement after "carefully monitoring federal executive orders and administrative actions." "This decision was not made lightly. We are aware of the profound impact that this decision will have on the patients treated in this program, as well as their families. We are committed to offering transitional support as the medication treatment component of the pediatric gender-affirming care program winds down, and our providers will continue to provide mental health and other health care services to these patients in a compassionate care environment," the statement provided to Fox News Digital read. Yale New Haven Health's full statement also claimed that the original program "did not include surgical interventions." Fox News Digital reached out to Connecticut Children's Medical Center and Yale New Haven Health for additional details. Since President Donald Trump signed the "Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation" executive order in January, several high-profile hospitals have announced they were either pausing or shutting down their gender transition programs for youth patients. The order states that the administration will not "fund, sponsor, promote, assist or support the so-called 'transition' of a child from one sex to another," and that it will "rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures." "Chemical and surgical mutilation" includes the use of puberty blockers, sex hormones and surgical procedures, according to the order on The White House's website.
Fox News
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Parents must stay alert as public schools hide life-altering decisions from families
There is a quiet but deeply troubling trend sweeping through our nation's public schools—a movement in which teachers, counselors and administrators are actively intervening in children's lives on the most personal of issues while deliberately keeping parents in the dark. Across the country, lawsuits are mounting as schools are found secretly facilitating the gender transition of minors without informing their parents. This is not just a pedagogical overreach—it is a gross violation of parental rights and a dangerous assumption that strangers know better than mothers and fathers what is best for their children. Consider these recent and active legal cases: In Leon County, Florida, the Goldwater Institute is representing a family suing the school board for secretly facilitating their daughter's gender transition. According to the complaint, school officials met with the girl to develop a "gender support plan" without ever informing her parents. When her mother eventually discovered the deception, she was shocked to learn that school staff had systematically excluded her from major decisions about her child's identity and well-being. In Ludlow, Massachusetts, parents are likewise suing their school district for secretly encouraging and supporting their children's gender transitions. Emails revealed that school officials were advising students on how to socially transition—changing names and pronouns—while explicitly instructing staff not to inform the parents. When one concerned parent reached out to the school for clarification, she was misled regarding the full extent of the school's actions. The story is similar in Skaneateles, New York, where the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty has filed a brief challenging a court decision that effectively allows school staff to keep parents in the dark when it comes to gender identity transitions. That case, though originating in another state, has national implications, as it may set legal precedent for whether schools can legally withhold this type of information from parents. In Spreckels Union School District, California, the district settled a lawsuit with a mother who sued after learning that the school had supported her daughter's social transition to a male identity, all without any parental notification. The school even advised the student not to tell her mother. After the story came to light, the child eventually chose to detransition and now identifies as female once again. The emotional damage was significant and entirely avoidable. And in Delaware Valley Regional High School, New Jersey, a father is suing the school district for interfering with his parental rights. School officials allegedly supported his child's transition and withheld critical information from him. Once again, the rationale behind this concealment was the assumption that school staff knew better than the child's own parent. Each of these cases underscores a dangerous trend: schools taking it upon themselves to guide children through life-altering identity decisions, while actively excluding the people who love and know these children best—their parents. This is not merely a cultural issue. It's a constitutional one. The Supreme Court has long upheld the rights of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), the Court affirmed that "the child is not the mere creature of the State." Yet in these cases, schools are acting as if they are. This principle of parental authority was recently reaffirmed in the Mahmoud v. Taylor Supreme Court decision. Advocates of these secretive school policies argue that not all homes are safe, and, in some cases, students fear parental rejection. But rather than treating all parents as potential threats, the appropriate course is to address specific concerns through social services when abuse is suspected, not to adopt blanket policies that usurp parental authority. The answer to a dysfunctional few is not the disempowerment of the many. The larger issue here is a growing ideological presumption in public education—that teachers and administrators are better equipped to guide children morally, psychologically, and even medically than their parents. That belief is not just arrogant; it is destructive. These are not minor issues of dress code or extracurricular participation. A child's gender identity involves deep philosophical, psychological and spiritual questions. It is not the role of public institutions to step into that realm without the full knowledge and involvement of families. When educators deliberately lie to parents or conceal critical information, they do not just breach trust—they undermine the foundational relationship between parent and child. America's parents must remain vigilant. These lawsuits reveal a national pattern, not isolated incidents. The well-being of children depends on strong families, not activist school bureaucracies. Our schools are supposed to be partners with parents, not adversaries working behind closed doors. It is time to say clearly and without apology: schools must not facilitate the social or medical transition of any child without parental consent. Doing so is not compassion—it is coercion. And it must stop.
Fox News
21-07-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Children's National Hospital in DC to end gender transition medical interventions
Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., has announced that it will no longer provide gender transition-related medical interventions. The web page for the hospital's "Gender Development Program" displays a message for existing and new patients announcing the change, which will go into effect Aug. 30. "In light of escalating legal and regulatory risks to Children's National, our providers, and the families we serve, we will be discontinuing the prescription of gender-affirming medications," the message says. "Mental health and other support services for LGBT patients remain available. You are always welcome at Children's National for your other medical needs." "We know this change will have a significant impact on affected patients, families and staff. Our care teams are working directly with families of current patients to support them," it adds, urging people with questions to contact the hospital directly. The announcement comes after the Justice Department on July 9 sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics involved in performing transgender medical procedures on children. The Trump administration said DOJ investigations include healthcare fraud, false statements and more. "Medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology will be held accountable by this Department of Justice," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement at the time. It was not immediately clear if Children's National received a subpoena. In late January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled, "Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation," which directed federal agencies to slash Medicare, Medicaid and other federal funding from providers offering so-called "gender‑affirming care" to patients under the age of 19. A federal judge in February issued a nationwide temporary restraining order, blocking the order while litigation filed by LGBTQ advocacy groups proceeds. Children's National Hospital was among several hospitals that paused prescriptions, refills and medication to minors as a result of Trump's order but later resumed such transgender services after the court intervened, according to The Washington Post. Since Friday's announcement that the hospital would stop providing gender-transition services to children on Aug. 30, the Post obtained a message sent out to impacted families saying Children's National teams "are available to assist you as you move forward" but will no longer evaluate patients for medication or monitor medications through labs such as blood work. According to Trump's executive order, "Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child's sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation's history, and it must end." The order claims, "countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding," and, moreover, "these vulnerable youths' medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization." It adds that the U.S. "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." Ben Takai, the board president of Metro DC PFLAG, which is involved in the lawsuit challenging Trump's order, told the Post the change at Children's National was sad, adding that "there are many ways to bully minority populations." Children's National asserts on its gender development program's web page that "some young people feel, sense or know they are a gender different than the one they were assumed at birth." "They may live and dress in ways typical of another gender (gender non-conformity), and some may experience the need to live and be affirmed as this gender in some or all settings," the hospital says. "This can be an urgent need, or for others, there may be experimentation and exploration. There are also some young people who show gender non-conformity in their everyday behaviors, but may not yet have the self-advocacy skills to discuss their gender identity and their gender-related needs." The hospital website says parental consent is required to provide "gender-affirming medical care" to a minor in the District of Columbia. The hospital also says it does not provide "gender-affirming surgery" for anyone under the age of 18 and does not provide hormone therapy to children before puberty begins. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in May released a report framing gender transition treatments for minors as risky and insufficiently studied. To treat pediatric gender dysphoria, it recommends replacing most medical interventions with "exploratory therapy." The report says that the "gender-affirming" model of care "includes irreversible endocrine and surgical interventions on minors with no physical pathology." "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," according to HHS. "Meanwhile, systematic reviews of the evidence have revealed deep uncertainty about the purported benefits of these interventions." The report notes that the United Kingdom in December 2024 indefinitely banned puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria. Meanwhile, amid pressure from the Trump administration, the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, considered the largest public provider of "gender-affirming care" for children and teens in the U.S., announced earlier this month that it was closing by July 22.
