The FBI is urging people to report health care providers who may be assisting transgender minors with gender-affirming care, as part of the Trump administration’s mission to “protect children.”
“As the Attorney General has made clear, we will protect our children and hold accountable those who mutilate them under the guise of gender-affirming care,” the FBI’s official account wrote on the social platform X on Monday, urging followers to “report tips of any hospitals, clinics or practitioners performing these surgical procedures on children” to its phone and web tip lines.
According to the independent KFF policy tracker, youth gender-affirming care has been outlawed in 27 states — starting with Arkansas in 2021. Seventeen states are facing legal challenges over the restrictions, so they have been temporarily put on hold.
Gender-affirming care covers any medical, mental health and nonmedical services for transgender and nonbinary people, but all of the restrictions that states have adopted include surgical procedures.
President Trump signed an executive order just hours after his return to office in January recognizing male and female as the only two sexes and directing federal agencies to cease promotion of the concept of gender transition. He issued another order a week later meant to broadly restrict access to gender-affirming care for transgender children and teenagers younger than 19.
Under those directives, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has adopted the position that it “rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children, by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women, by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities,” and it removed a web page on gender-affirming care from its website because it “does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department rejects it.”
The FBI’s call for tips comes as the LGBTQ community celebrates Pride Month and Washington, D.C., hosts the 2025 World Pride festivities.
Trump vowed to root out what he often referred to as “transgender insanity” and “transgender lunacy” during his reelection campaign for president last year. Less than 2 percent of the U.S. population ages 13 and older identifies as transgender or nonbinary.
Gender-affirming care, especially surgical, also is rare for minors and considered on a case-by-case basis.
HHS released a report last month on the issue but offered no recommendations or guidelines for health care providers.
KFF found that about 40 percent of trans youth ages 13 to 17 live in states that have adopted limits on gender-affirming care options.
