HHS official warns of irreversible risks as Trump admin restricts funding for youth gender procedures
EXCLUSIVE – Efforts to treat gender dysphoria among minors should be utilized with mental health counseling and compassionate care, not with hormone blockers and "mutilating surgeries" that can potentially have long-term and irreversible ramifications, said Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Adm.Brian Christine.Christine, a urologist who oversees public health offices and programs within HHS and leads the U.S.
Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, came out in support of the Trump administration's Tuesday announcement of a new rule that will bar Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, from funding puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries to treat gender dysphoria in minors."Gender dysphoria is certainly a real condition.There are some children who have gender dysphoria, some minors who have that," Christine told Fox News Digital.
"Now, in the past, it's been an incredibly small percentage.And what we've seen is this has really turned into a social contagion.
In other words, where there's so many more kids being diagnosed with gender dysphoria, that's not really explained by simple epidemiology."What medical professionals know, Christine said, is that the vast majority of minors who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria will move beyond it if they are provided with competent, compassionate counseling.MEDICAID ENDS FUNDING FOR CHILD SEX-CHANGE PROCEDURES AS TRUMP ADMIN SLAMS 'EXPERIMENTAL' TREATMENTSAdmiral Brian Christine, MD, assistant secretary for health at the U.S.Department of Health and Human Services, speaks during a press conference at the Davis Global Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus.
Christine supports the Trump administration's efforts to block Medicaid and CHIP funding for gender transition treatments for minors.(Getty Images)"What you don't want to do is carry out treatments… we refer to them as sex-rejecting procedures, where you're using castrating chemicals or cross-sex ho...