Commentary

House Passes Budget Bill Cutting Off Medicaid Funding for Child Sex Changes

  • By Do No Harm Staff
  • May 22, 2025

This morning, the House of Representatives passed The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a sweeping spending bill that included a provision restricting Medicaid funding for sex change interventions.

Do No Harm worked with Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) on developing a provision to be added to the spending bill that would prevent Medicaid, CHIP, and Affordable Care Act funds from being used for child sex-change interventions. This provision echoes Rep. Crenshaw’s Do No Harm in Medicaid Act.

“We applaud Representative Crenshaw and the House for their efforts to protect children from unscientific sex-change procedures,” said Kurt Miceli, MD, Medical Director at Do No Harm. “Americans overwhelmingly oppose these harmful procedures for children and the American taxpayer should not be forced to pay for them.”

The provision amends Section 1903(i) of the Social Security Act, cutting off federal funding for “medically unnecessary procedures” that include child sex change interventions.

Do No Harm provided the Congressional Budget Office with crucial information that enabled it to estimate the cost of these procedures, thereby helping the provision make its way into the spending bill.

The existing evidence does not support the use of sex change interventions to treat gender-distressed children. 

For instance, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a report finding that the “gender-affirming” approach to care of gender-distressed children “lacked sufficient scientific and ethical justification.”

The Cass Review, an exhaustive review of gender medical services in the United Kingdom, found “remarkably weak evidence” to support the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for gender-distressed children.

Additionally, many of the most frequently-cited studies supporting so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors are rife with methodological errors. Countries including the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Finland have each restricted minors’ access to these procedures.