Limiting gender affirming interventions: Trump administration targets Texas even though it already bans youth access Lindsey Dawson | June 4, 2026

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2026/06/04/limiting-gender-affirming-interventions-trump-administration-targets-texas-even-though-it-already-bans-youth-access/ Since early 2025, the Trump Administration has sought to limit youth access to gender-affirming care, taking a comprehensive approach to impose and enforce limitations. The administration has implemented or initiated dozens of actions with this aim, some of which have been challenged in court. In response to these actions, at least 40 health care institutions have walked back the provision of gender-affirming care over the last year and a half. This attrition has occurred in waves and in direct response to policy making – first following an executive order laying out the administration’s approach to limiting this care in January 2025, and then several times since in response to subpoenas (see below), proposed rulemaking, and a (now vacated) “declaration” from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, among other efforts. Over this period, when providers shut down services, they have generally said they were doing for reasons such “external pressures beyond our control,” “new federal orders targeting such procedures,” and “mounting pressure from the federal government”, not because they had concerns about safety, medical indication, or effectiveness. At times state Attorneys General have pushed providers to reopen or maintain services, stating that failing to do so would put them in potential violation of state non-discrimination laws and some have expressed frustration that pulling back on this care has at times preempted formal policy making. Pressure from the federal government to end care, oppositional pressure from states to provide care, and institutional barriers to providing best practice care, have left clinics and clinicians in a challenging position.