Hospitals across the country are suspending or reevaluating their gender-affirming care programs for patients under 19, creating fear and confusion among transgender youth and their families.
Those who have put out public statements cited President Donald Trump’s executive order that directed federal agencies to take action against hospitals that continue to provide care, including threatening to cut federal funding and grants.
But the executive order, by itself, doesn’t make providing gender-affirming care illegal, especially in the 24 states that don’t have any laws prohibiting care, said Craig Konnoth, a law professor at the University of Virginia.
“Right now, hospitals and health systems are subject to no requirements to do anything because the executive order is not self-enforcing or self-executing but rather it relies on agencies to promulgate various kinds of agency actions,” he said.
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