Children's Minnesota pauses gender-affirming care for children due to federal funding threats

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Children's Minnesota announced on Tuesday it would pause some gender-affirming care for children due to funding cut threats from the Trump administration.

Members of the Minnesota Queer Legislators Caucus and Attorney General Ellison are set to address the recent announcement on Wednesday. You can watch the press conference in the player above.

Children's Minnesota pauses gender care services

What we know:

In a statement Tuesday morning, Children's Minnesota said it has seen an "increase in federal actions" as a result of being a provider of gender-affirming care.

The statement goes on to say: "These threats jeopardize the stability of Minnesota’s only comprehensive pediatric health care system, and they threaten our clinicians’ ability to practice medicine now and in the future. If conditions remain the same, we plan to temporarily pause prescribing puberty-suppressing medications and pubertal hormones (estrogen and testosterone) for patients under age 18 in our Gender Health program, effective Friday, Feb. 27, 2026."

What they're saying:

In a statement, the health care center says:

"Children’s Minnesota remains committed to advocating for the dignity and well-being of the patients and families who trust us with their care. We have contacted our patient families directly to help them navigate any impacts to their care.

"This is not the decision we wanted to make. This is the decision we had to make to protect our hospital and our providers. We stand firmly behind the fact that gender affirming care is evidence-based, safe and lifesaving for transgender and gender diverse youth."

Trump admin changes to gender-affirming care

The backstory:

In December, the Trump administration announced regulatory actions to bar gender-affirming care for children at hospitals as part of an executive order issued by the president. Among the changes was a proposed rule that would bar hospitals that receive Medicare or Medicaid funds from providing gender-affirming care to children.

Officials argue that children cannot be expected to make "life-altering" and "irreversible" decisions.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, also argued that some of the procedures are "experimental" and unsafe.

"Children deserve our protection, not experimental interventions performed on them, that carry life-altering risks with no reliable evidence of benefit," said Dr. Oz in a December statement. "This proposal seeks to clarify that hospitals participating in our programs cannot conduct these unproven procedures on children. CMS will ensure that federal program standards reflect our responsibility to promote the health and safety of children."

Reaction to pause

Big picture view:

In a statement, the Minnesota Queer Legislators Caucus lamented the decision, writing in part: "Gender-affirming care saves lives. Our beloved trans community is an integral part of our society, and trans children deserve to become trans adults. The federal government’s abuse of power and overreach into private medical decisions is a concerted effort to eliminate trans people from public life. This inhumane targeting of our children—using executive orders, funding threats, and harassment of hospitals and doctors as political leverage—is a violation of human decency. Shame on this administration for wagering the lives of our nation’s youth for political gain. When our young children tell us who they are, we are obligated to listen to them, love them, and support them in their journey. In Minnesota our laws protect our trans youth, their families, and the medical doctors and practitioners who provide health care to them."