JD Vance calls for DOJ investigation into alleged fraud in transgender care for minors
JD Vance alledges fraud in transgender care for minors. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Vice President JD Vance has called for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate hospitals over so-called transgender care fraud.
This marks the latest move from the Trump administration to restrict access to trans healthcare and spread an anti-trans ideology.
The federal investigation the administration is pursuing alleges that hospitals incorrectly billed insurers for transgender health care procedures to make a profit.
A report by the Department of Health and Human Services alleged that there have been millions in insurance claims for treatments. These procedures also include the likes of puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
The report is titled Wolves in White Coats: How Doctors and Hospitals Pushed and Profited from the Fraud of “Gender Medicine”.
“Some pediatric gender clinics and children’s hospitals have apparently used misleading or even fraudulent diagnostic and billing codes to ensure that insurance companies will cover the procedures,” Vance wrote in a letter calling for the investigation, Politico reported.
The Trump administration is reportedly seeking reviews of gender-affirming care at more than 200 hospitals and clinics.
Gender-affirming surgeries are very rare among minors
This push arrives after Medicaid funding was cut to hospitals that offer gender-affirming care for minors. This care applies to not just transgender minors, but nonbinary, intersex, and cisgender patients as well.
President Donald Trump celebrated the change in a Truth Social post, describing gender-affirming healthcare as “barbaric” and saying the rule would spare children from what he called potentially harmful procedures. It’s a further attempt to advance an anti-transgender ideology.
Trump also wrote: “the Dumocrat Party wants your kids to be able to chop off their reproductive organs before they are old enough to vote”.
Trump’s Medicaid cuts are set to take effect on October 13. However, legal challenges have the potential to delay or block the rule.
Gender-affirming surgeries are very rare among minors, according to research published in JAMA Network Open. For pre-teens, these sorts of treatments are virtually nonexistent.
Trump’s new rule seeks to ban the more commonly used forms of care, including puberty blockers and hormone treatment.
Medical and LGBTQ+ organisations have strongly criticised the policy. The National Alliance on Mental Illness has cited research indicating that access to gender-affirming care can improve mental health outcomes.
Furthermore, regret about gender-affirming surgery is rare, with a rate of approximately 1.94%, according to a 2024 study.
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