Dr Oz furious over ‘$150k penis surgery’ for trans youth – here’s the truth

Mehmet Oz, better-known as Dr Oz, has raged about “$150k penis surgery” for trans youth, but he failed to cite any facts.

Dr Oz, who leads Medicaid and Medicare, announced on Thursday (18 December), alongside health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, measures that will ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. 

The ban, part of Dr Oz’s bid to end “taxpayer funding of sex rejecting procedures for children in Medicaid and CHIP [children’s health insurance program], full stop”, takes the form of two new proposed rules from Medicaid and Medicare. 

The first prevents doctors and hospitals from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursement for gender-affirming care provided to trans youth under the age of 18, while the second blocks all Medicaid and Medicare funding for any services at hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care. 

Medicaid, which is the health care program that covers low-income Americans, alongside older and disabled citizens, is taken at most hospitals, meaning the proposals could have a wide-ranging effect, as per New Hampshire Public Radio. 

During announcing the proposals, Kennedy referred to gender-affirming care as “malpractice”, while Dr Oz went completely off topic. 

The 65-year-old began ranting about the prices of bottom surgery, which is very rarely performed on individuals under 18. 

“A vaginoplasty – a procedure a child does not need – costs $60,000,” he claimed, adding: “Shockingly, a phalloplasty, the creation of a penis, costs, on average, in America, $150,000 per child.

“I do believe, with doing some work, that these prices have continued to increase due to increased manufactured demand,” he continued. “A scrotalplasty, where you add testicles? That’s extra.”

Dr Oz didn’t clarify where he pulled his quoted figures from, but according to the Gender Confirmation Center, the price of a vaginoplasty is between $23,000 and $24,500, while phalloplasty ranges between $35,000 and $50,000.

According to 2025 data from the Williams Institute, about one per cent of people aged 13 and older identify as trans in the US, and despite the proposals attacking gender-affirming care for trans youth, multiple studies show that surgeries are rarely performed on minors.

A 2024 study by researchers at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health found that no gender-affirming surgeries were performed on trans or gender diverse youth (TGD) aged 12 and younger in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available.

For teens ages 15 to 17 and adults ages 18 and older, the rate of undergoing gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000 and 5.3 per 100,000, respectively. The majority of surgeries were chest surgeries.

Co-author Elizabeth Boskey, instructor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, said: “We found that gender-affirming surgeries are rarely performed for transgender minors, suggesting that US surgeons are appropriately following international guidelines around assessment and care.” 

Lead author Dannie Dai, research data analyst in the Department of Health Policy and Management, added: “Our findings suggest that legislation blocking gender-affirming care among TGD youth is not about protecting children, but is rooted in bias and stigma against TGD identities and seeks to address a perceived problem that does not actually exist.”

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