The Trump administration on Tuesday finalized a rule that will bar Medicaid from covering gender identity healthcare for children enrolled in the government’s low-income insurance program.
The new policy prohibits states from using federal Medicaid funds to pay for any gender identity care for enrollees under 18, marking the administration’s latest effort to restrict youth access to transgender healthcare.
President Donald Trump celebrated the move in a Truth Social post, touting it as necessary to crack down on “barbaric surgeries and practices, which result in unthinkable and irreversible harm to their young bodies.”
“Just think about all the young, innocent, and perhaps confused children who will be spared!” Trump wrote on social media.
The president has sought to make transgender care a central issue in the run-up to the midterms, frequently describing such gender identity healthcare procedures in graphic terms and claiming, without evidence, that swaths of children are being pressured to secretly transition without their parents’ knowledge.
