Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times,
Mounting political, financial, and legal pressures are poised to put more youth gender clinics out of business - or could force them to scale back services.
During the first two months of 2026, about a half-dozen U.S. gender clinics announced they would pause or discontinue some treatment programs for minors, according to hospital announcements and news reports reviewed by The Epoch Times.
The curtailmenttrend, which began in 2021 when states began passing laws to ban medical interventions on minors, picked up steam last year when President Donald Trump issued a wide-ranging executive order to guard against what he calls “surgical and chemical mutilation” of children—procedures that advocates refer to as “gender-affirming care.”
A wave of clinic closures and increased restrictions followed, buoyed by a mid-2025 Supreme Court ruling that upheld Tennessee’s statewide ban on medical transitions for minors. And this year, in a landmarkverdict, a New York jury awarded a woman $2 million in a gender-transition medical malpractice case; many similar cases are pending.
Within days of the Jan. 30 decision, two major medical organizations—the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Medical Association—recommended delaying transition procedures until adulthood.
Several clinics that ended some gender treatments last month emphasized that mental health services would remain unaffected.
University of Utah Health confirmed that it will “discontinue hormonal transgender treatment for all patients under the age of 18, effective April 15, 2026,” an emailed statement said.
NYU Langone Health released a statement last month in which it cited a hospital leadership change and “the current regulatory environment” as reasons for stopping its Transgender Youth Health Program.
New York state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez said she considers those treatments “essential healthcare” for minors,according to a statement released Feb. 18, following NYU Langone’s closure decision.
Source: ZeroHedge News
