President Donald Trump issued an executive order Tuesday banning child gender transition care, which the order refers to as the “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children.
“Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions,” the order reads. “This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.
“Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” it states.
The order applies to individuals younger than 19 years of age, according to the document.
The phrase “chemical and surgical mutilation” within the order means “the use of puberty blockers … to delay the onset or progression of normally timed puberty in an individual who does not identify as his or her sex” as well as “the use of sex hormones, such as androgen blockers, estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone, to align an individual’s physical appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex.”
It also includes “surgical procedures that attempt to transform an individual’s physical appearance to align with an identity that differs from his or her sex or that attempt to alter or remove an individual’s sexual organs to minimize or destroy their natural biological functions.”
