Trans Youth Deserve Care, Not Cruelty

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 1, 2025

HHS Report Pushes Dangerous Agenda, Threatens Lifesaving Best Practice Health Care for Transgender Youth

ID: digital collage featuring a meme of a grumpy penguin claymation figure making a craft that includes a trans rainbow and text “Even in the face of hardship, trans people will craft our own bodies, our own futures, our own joy”

Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report that puts transgender youth across the country in harm’s way. Disguised in bureaucratic language and rebranded terms, the report rejects decades of medical consensus and appears to open the door to so-called “corrective care” or “gender exploratory therapy”—language that is functionally identical to discredited conversion therapy.

This report, originally scheduled for release Monday (4.28.25), reflects what it ultimately is–a quickly cobbled together document that declares science its authors agree with as good and correct, and science that doesn't match the political agenda of this current administration as wrong or bad, without scientific evidence. Ultimately what we find in this document is the same dangerous, discredited conversion therapy agenda that fringe therapists have been pushing on 2SLGBTQ+ youth for decades.

This is not a policy document—it is a dangerous attempt to replace trusted, evidence-based medical care with ideology that has already been condemned by every major U.S. medical and mental health organization. These kinds of policies don’t protect kids—they isolate them, stigmatize them, and cause lasting harm.

Transgender health care is not experimental. It is safe, effective, and backed by over four decades of clinical research and real-world outcomes. The same medications used to support transgender youth are routinely used to treat other conditions in young people, such as early-onset puberty. The evidence is clear: this care improves mental health outcomes and saves lives.

Conversion therapy by any name—whether “exploratory,” “corrective,” or “therapeutic”—has long been rejected by the medical community for one simple reason: it doesn't work, and it causes real harm. Being transgender is not a disorder to be cured. It’s a natural human variation, rooted in biology, and no amount of pressure or counseling can make a transgender person not transgender.

“There is a long history of fascist regimes first targeting Two Spirit, trangender, and gender non-conforming+ (2STGNC+) people. Our very existence is an existential threat to control. Targeting us further allows for those in power to distract the public, undermine science and public education, and dehumanize an entire group of people. It’s why the Hirschfeld library was targeted by Nazis in 1933 and why settler colonizers have a long history of genocide targeting 2STGNC+ people the world over,” says Freedom Oklahoma Executive Director Nicole McAfee (they/she). “This administration has already erased critical data about trans people. This report is the next step in a narrative that encourages people to target trans youth with conversion therapy practices we know are dangerous, if not deadly. This is an inexcusable escalation to see how far the agenda of anti-trans dehumanization can be advanced from the highest seats of US democracy.”

Studies show that 98% of people who access transition-related care continue it long-term, and regret rates are exceptionally low—around 1% or less. For comparison, common surgeries like knee replacements can have regret rates as high as 30%. Yet only one kind of care is being targeted in this report: care that supports transgender young people in being themselves.

To every trans young person reading this: You are not alone. You are not broken. You are not a problem to be fixed. This government may try to write you out of care, but our community sees you, believes in you, and is fighting back for your right to exist safely, openly, and joyfully. We remain committed to you and making sure you have access to the healthcare of your choosing.

We know hearing, holding, and processing this information is heavy. We also acknowledge community spaces may be hard to find. Trans Lifeline & Thrive Lifeline are trans led and operated - Thrive specializes in serving 2SLGBTQ+ adults. BlackLine operates through unapologetic Black LGBTQ and Black femme lenses. The LGBT National Help Center handles all calls in-house with trained LGBTQ+ volunteers. 2SLGBTQ+ crisis hotlines that may (with or without consent) engage police, include The Trevor Project, 988, and the crisis text line (if you text this line ‘NATIVE’ you will be connected with someone whose focus is Native communities).