Children’s Wisconsin and UW Health, two of the state’s largest pediatric hospitals, have paused gender-affirming care treatment for minors, according to sources associated with both clinics.
The move comes less than a month after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced newly proposed rules on Jan. 18 that the federal government would deny Medicaid and Medicare payments to hospitals and clinics for all medical interventions if they provide gender-affirming care services for patients 17 and younger. Such a move would virtually shut down any hospital.
The rules specifically would bar Medicaid payments for gender-affirming treatments for minors, remove gender dysphoria from being protected under a federal disability law, and halt manufacturers from marketing breast binders to children and adolescents.
The clinics, Gender Health Clinic at Children’s and Pediatric and Adolescent Transgender Health at UW Health, have served families in southeast Wisconsin and beyond for years.
Ashley Janzen, a spokesperson at Children’s, confirmed to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel it is no longer able to provide care to its transgender and gender nonbinary patients outside of behavioral health services.
“At Children’s Wisconsin, we strongly believe everyone, including LGBTQ+ kids, should be treated with the support, respect, dignity and compassion they deserve. We are communicating to patients that due to escalating legal and federal regulatory risk facing systems and providers across the nation, we are currently unable to provide gender affirming pharmacologic care. Mental and behavioral health services will continue for patients and families who wish to receive this care from us,” Janzen said over email.
Likewise, Sara Benzel from UW Health confirmed with the Journal Sentinel it has also paused much of its care.
“UW Health is committed to providing high-quality, compassionate and patient-centered care to our patients and families, including LGBTQ+ patients,” Benzel said. “Due to recent federal actions, UW Health is pausing prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapy as part of gender-affirming care for patients under 18 years of age. We recognize the uncertainty faced by our impacted patients and families seeking this gender-affirming care and will continue to support their health and well-being.”
Sources familiar with the clinics said families of trans and nonbinary youth started receiving calls from providers last week. They’ve been told providers have been instructed to say they “are no longer allowed to provide gender-affirming care” to youth patients. It’s unclear from these conversations for how long services will be on hold, or if they are essentially permanent.
In a Journal Sentinel interview, one parent raised concerns that the clinics are abandoning ongoing treatments, such as hormone replacement therapy, leaving children to go cold turkey after years of taking either estrogen or testosterone. The parent’s daughter has a puberty blocker implant, a small rod inserted into her upper arm that slowly releases a hormone pausing puberty.
“This implant has to be removed. It’s degrading inside her,” said the parent, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to safety concerns. “We can’t even get labs to see what her testosterone levels are.”
Such decisions, multiple sources told the Journal Sentinel, have eroded trust between patients and health care providers.
Abigail Swetz, executive director of Fair Wisconsin, a civil rights political advocacy organization dedicated to Wisconsin’s LGBTQ+ community, told the Journal Sentinel the ongoing attacks the Trump administration has taken against trans people has been “disgusting” and an “awful decision” that puts everyone, from young patients to health care providers, in a “very tough place.”
“These clinics should never have been bullied by this federal administration into making any kind of decision in the first place, especially one that reduces access to this life-affirming care,” Swetz said.
Swetz has encouraged concerned residents to participate in the public comment period on Kennedy’s proposed rules through the Federal Register. Residents have until Feb. 17 to share their thoughts and concerns on the proposed rules out of the Centers for Medicaid & Medicaid Services.
As is becoming custom for the Trump administration, attorneys general from 18 states and the District of Columbia, including Wisconsin, swiftly sued the administration over what it sees as an overreach of power that “substantially violates” federal health care program statutes and the Administrative Procedure Act, a foundational U.S. law that sets standards for rulemaking.
In a press release delivered Dec. 26, Attorney General Josh Kaul said the proposed rules violate federal statutes and undermine the state’s long-standing authority to regulate and manage medicine.
“Secretary Kennedy must not be permitted to exercise major influence by decree over what health care is available,” Kaul said. “Allowing the HHS secretary to do so could have sweeping consequences for access to quality, evidence-based health care.”
This story has been updated to include new information.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Children’s, UW Health halt gender health care for minors
Reporting by Natalie Eilbert, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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