PolitiFact has a full and in my opinion misleading "fact check" on the EO today:
"Fact-checking misleading claims from Trump’s executive order on trans youth health care
President Donald Trump’s executive orderr_ about medical care for transgender youth called to end "reliance on junk science" but also included claims about gender-affirming care that clash with leading medical research and practice.
The Jan. 28 order declared that the U.S. government "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."
The order demanded ending federal funding to any hospitals or medical schools that provide gender-affirming medical care to youth. It also directed the Department of Health and Human Services "take all appropriate actions" under law to end access to care.
It defined a child as anyone younger than 19, including 18-year-olds whom federal and state laws generally presume to be adultss.
Some U.S. hospitals, including in states in which gender-affirming care for youth is legal, have respondedd to the order by suspending its caree_ offerings.
Here are some misleading claims from the order, which will likely face legal challenge.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Claim: "Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children."
It’s inaccurate to characterize gender-affirming care as "maiming" or "sterilizing" and this statement gives a misleading impression about the kind of care that medical professionals provide to transgender children.
Gender-affirming medical care seeks to support transgender and nonbinary people’ss_ gender identity. For prepubescent patients, that basically amounts to "social transition," which is presented in social ways — wearing new clothes or going by different pronouns or names — not medical ways — through surgery or medicine.
After puberty’s onset, and after consulting mental health providers, doctors and parents, trans adolescents can be prescribed puberty blockerss_, which temporarily pause the body from producing the hormones that cause pubertal changes. Once an adolescent stops taking them, puberty resumes. Blockers alone do not cause infertility.
Since the 1980ss_, doctors have prescribed and studied puberty blockers for children who start puberty too young, known as precocious puberty.
Medical guidelines from the Endocrine Societyy and American Academy of Pediatricss say older adolescents can be prescribed hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen, that cause body changes — some reversible, others not — in line with those adolescents' gender identities. Extended hormone use can affectt long-termm fertilityy — but not alwayss.
Medical guideliness instruct doctors to inform and discuss fertility risks before prescribing hormones. Trans adolescentss’ use of cross-sex hormones has generallyy shownn positivee or neutral effectss on mental healthh and well-beingg.
Gender-affirming surgery in patients younger than 18 is veryy uncommonn, especiallyy_ "bottom surgeries" that alter genitalia or reproductive organs.
Claim: "Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated."
That’s misleading. Some adolescents who receive gender-affirming care may decide to stop treatment or regret the care they received. This can happen with all medical care.
But research shows the numbers of people who "regret""_ gender-affirming care are small.
Recentt studiess of adolescentss whoo havee receivedd gender-affirmingg medicalltreatmentt showw the rates of people stopping treatment, regretting treatment, or reverting to their birth-assigned sex range from 1% to 9%, with most being on the lower end of that range.
For example, a 20244_ American study surveyed 220 youth who took puberty blockers or hormones. Of the 220, nine (4%) expressed regret about one of the treatments. Of those nine, five stopped gender-affirming medical care or planned to stop. The other four continued care.
Numbers of detransitionn or regrett are often even lowerr for adultss, research shows.
The reasons people "detransition" — or stop gender-affirming medical care — are increasingly diverse, and don’t always mean people’s identities have reverted to their birth-assigned sex, experts said. Some people may transition to a nonbinary identity, meaning they identify as neither a man nor a woman, or stop medical intervention after they have achieved a certain appearance.
Other people may change their gender presentation or pronouns, without regret. Detransitioners may see their transitions as an important part of their gender exploration, or detransition because of social, familial, or economic pressures, experts said.
Read Staff Writer Grace Abels’ full fact-check. >>>_"