Last year, Do No Harm unveiled a database showing that there were more than 13,000 gender reassignment procedures on minors between 2019-23

TJ Martinell
The Center Square Washington

Last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning medical providers from performing gender reassignment or affirming procedures, such as mastectomies or prescribing puberty blockers, to individuals below the age of 19. In response, many medical centers and hospitals have since suspended those services.

Meanwhile, some states such as Washington have filed lawsuits against the EO, while California has threatened legal action against medical providers who discontinue those services.

Nevertheless, a senior fellow with a nationwide nonprofit that has investigated the practice of youth gender reassignment procedures says the EO indicates that it’s “a fever that is breaking.”

“It is unclear how some important people managed to convince themselves that they should give life-altering drugs and surgeries to children to change the appearance of their sex,” Do No Harm Senior Fellow Jay Green wrote in an email to The Center Square. “But, as the public learns more about this and policymakers become involved, it becomes harder to continue defending the practices. Of course, there will be pockets of resistance, but the direction we are headed in seems clear.”

Last year, Do No Harm unveiled a database showing that there were more than 13,000 gender reassignment procedures on minors between 2019-23. Among their findings was that some of the most prolific medical providers engaging in the practice were located in states that have since banned those procedures. Another finding was that some of these procedures were performed on children as young as 7 years old, with mastectomies constituting the vast majority of surgeries.

Among the medical providers to end these procedures was D.C.-based Children’s National Hospital, albeit prior to the EO it did not perform gender affirming surgeries.

Green wrote that “many medical providers recognize the significant liabilities associated with performing gender procedures on children already. So, when the government signals potential financial consequences, it was assumed that many, certainly not all, institutions would abandon or at least pause conducting these procedures.”

While Do No Harm now has a list of institutions that have suspended gender reassignment services, Green believes that the lack of a formal declaration from a hospital or medical center doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ignoring Trump’s EO.

“I strongly suspect that the vast majority of medical providers will comply with the executive order,” he said. “They have too much to lose. And the fact that many are not announcing their compliance suggests that they understand that it is increasingly difficult to justify gender procedures on children. Not advertising their surrender does not make it any less of a surrender.”

He concluded: “Some of the high-volume providers will lose a profit center, but giving children drugs and surgeries to alter the appearance of their sex is not central to what hospitals do. This whole thing has been a crazy fad. Hospitals and providers survived before gender ideology, and they’ll do just fine after they abandon these destructive procedures.”

This report was first published by The Center Square Washington.