Yesterday the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) took a bold step to safeguard our children from the dangerous and irreversible practices often labeled as “gender-affirming care.” On May 28, 2025, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent a letter to health care providers, risk managers, and state medical boards across the country, urging them to immediately update their treatment protocols for minors with gender dysphoria. This is a victory for science, for common sense, and—most importantly—for our kids.
The HHS letter, backed by a comprehensive review of medical evidence, delivers a clear message: the treatments often pushed on children struggling with gender dysphoria—puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries—lack solid scientific support and carry serious risks. The review found “very weak evidence of benefit” for these interventions, while highlighting significant harms, including infertility, long-term health complications, and even sterilization. These are not minor side effects; they are life-altering consequences that no child should be subjected to based on junk “science.”
For years, groups like the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) have promoted their Standards of Care 8 (SOC-8) as the gold standard for treating gender dysphoria in minors. But the HHS review calls SOC-8 “fraudulent,” pointing out that it was shaped more by ideology than by rigorous scientific evidence. The letter urges doctors to stop relying on these discredited guidelines and instead adopt practices grounded in evidence-based medicine. This isn’t about denying care—it’s about ensuring that care is safe, ethical, and truly in the best interest of our children.
Over the last several years, we’ve watched with growing alarm as activists and some medical professionals have pushed experimental treatments on vulnerable children—often without fully informing parents of the risks. Puberty blockers, for example, are marketed as “reversible,” but the HHS review aligns with findings from the U.K.’s Cass Review (April 2024), which revealed that these drugs can lead to irreversible changes, including impacts on bone density, brain development, and fertility. Cross-sex hormones and surgeries take this even further, with risks of cardiovascular issues, metabolic disorders, and permanent sterilization. No child can fully grasp the lifelong implications of these decisions, and no parent should be pressured into consenting to them based on ideological agendas rather than facts or worse, removed from their child’s healthcare altogether as we see happening in many Democrat-controlled states.
The HHS letter echoes what many of us have been saying all along: children struggling with gender dysphoria need compassionate, ethical care—not radical experiments. These kids are often dealing with complex emotional and mental health challenges, as the HHS review notes, including co-occurring issues like anxiety, depression, and trauma. Instead of addressing these root causes through therapy and support, too many have been rushed into medical interventions that can worsen their distress and cause lasting harm.
For parents, this letter is a beacon of hope. It sends a clear message to health care providers: stop pushing unproven treatments on our kids. If your child is struggling with gender dysphoria, you now have the backing of the federal government to demand care that is rooted in evidence, not activism. The HHS letter encourages doctors to focus on mental health support and to carefully consider the long-term impacts of any medical intervention. This aligns with what we’ve always believed: children need time, love, true affirmation that they are not born in the wrong body, and guidance to navigate their feelings, not irreversible procedures that could leave them with lifelong regret.
The HHS letter is a powerful reminder that science and reason can prevail, even in a world that sometimes seems overrun by radical ideologies. This letter is a victory for every parent who has worried about the safety of their child, for every grandparent who wants their grandchildren to grow up healthy and whole, and for every citizen who believes that medicine should be based on evidence, not activism.
Let’s celebrate this step forward, but let’s also stay vigilant. Our children are counting on us to protect them, and with the HHS taking a stand, we’re one step closer to ensuring they grow up in a world that values their health, their innocence, and their future.
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