New restrictions may force Cincinnati Children’s gender clinic closure
Cincinnati Children’s may soon have to face a tough decision: whether to close its Transgender Health Center or risk losing its federal funding.
The decision comes after a proposed rule change to the allocation of Medicaid and Medicare services – one that would block funding to any hospital that gives gender-affirming care to minors.
The rule change would affect virtually every hospital in the country, USA TODAY reported, including Cincinnati Children’s.
The hospital declined to respond to questions from The Enquirer but said in a statement, “Cincinnati Children’s provides evidence-based, individualized care to all patients while adhering to the law.”
A 2024 Ohio law barred gender-affirming care for youth in the state, including puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries. A grandfather clause allows current patients to continue hormone and blocker treatment.
But parents and trans advocates fear the clinic will have to close.
Hollie Miller, 51, said a Cincinnati Children’s doctor called her Jan. 30 and said her daughter would not be able to continue gender-affirming care at the hospital. Miller’s 15-year-old daughter has received treatment at the hospital for about the past four years.
“According to the state of Ohio and (Gov.) Mike DeWine himself, my daughter has the right to have transgender affirming care in the state of Ohio,” Miller said.
Tristan Vaught, an LGBTQ advocate in Cincinnati, said they believe the transgender clinic at Cincinnati Children’s will likely have to close in the coming months.
“That’s the decision I would make if I was CEO of that organization, even as a trans person, because I wouldn’t want kids who have cancer right now, who are dying, not to be able to access health care,” they said.
The pending rules and Trump’s role
The proposed new rules would bar hospitals from using Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program to cover costs associated with transgender health care. They also would revoke all Medicaid, CHIP and Medicare funding for any medical purpose from hospitals that provide transgender care to minors.
If approved, the restrictions would make it virtually impossible for many hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to continue to operate because they rely so heavily on Medicaid and CHIP. Cincinnati Children’s, for example, has said 43% of its patients use Medicaid.
The proposed rules, which refer to gender-affirming care as “sex-rejecting procedures,” are built on the Trump administration’s position that such care is dangerous to children, something medical experts disagree with.
The American Academy of Pediatrics urged federal officials to rescind the proposed rules.
“These rules are a baseless intrusion into the patient-physician relationship,” association president Susan Kressly said in a statement. “Patients, their families, and their physicians – not politicians or government officials – should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them.”
Hospitals close transgender youth clinics after pressure from feds
In January 2025, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to ensure hospitals receiving research or education grants end trans health care for minors.
Since then, several hospitals have curbed or stopped providing gender-affirming care for minors.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus announced in September 2025 it would no longer provide gender-affirming care prescriptions, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Denver Health in Colorado and the University of Colorado Health were just some of the other hospitals that stopped or paused performing gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19 after Trump’s executive order, USA TODAY reported last spring.
Cincinnati Children’s was among nine hospitals sent a letter in May 2025 by Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, requesting data and policies related to gender-related surgeries, hormone therapy and puberty blockers.
The U.S. Department of Justice sent subpoenas seeking medical records to 20 hospitals in June. Cincinnati Children’s has not publicly disclosed it received a subpoena.
The subpoena sought, among other things, documents “sufficient to identify each patient (by name, date of birth, Social Security number, address, and parent/guardian information) who was prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy,” according to court records.
On Jan. 23, the U.S. Department of Justice withdrew its subpoena that demanded the medical records of more than 3,000 transgender youth at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles as part of a settlement in a lawsuit brought by patients and their families, according to a news release from Western Center on Law and Poverty. The hospital closed its pediatric gender clinic in July 2025.
What’s next with the proposed rules?
The new rules could take effect as early as this spring. The deadline to submit public comments is Feb. 17, at which time federal officials will begin writing a final version of the rules.
Once that version is done, hospitals will have 60 days to comply.
‘The clinic will have to close’
Vaught, 47, is cofounder of Transform Cincy, a nonprofit that provides clothing options and social activities and services for people in gender transition.
Vaught doesn’t speak for the organization. But in their opinion, the proposed rules are a loss but that doesn’t necessarily mean eliminating services for transgender youth.
“If we were able to show these kids you can still exist without gender-affirming care, you can still be queer. You can still be trans, you can still be you?” Vaught said, that would be meaningful and necessary.
Because Vaught thinks there may come a time when gender-affirming medical care for people may not be an option.
“We have to find another way because at this point people are being blindsided about what’s going on in the administration,” they said.
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