Turning Point USA

One of the largest youth transgender clinics in the United States is shutting down amid pressure from the Trump administration.

According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, the Center for Transyouth Health and Development (CTYHD) at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) is set to close on July 22. The clinic has provided puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and surgeries to thousands of minors who identify as transgender. The hospital attributed the decision to “increasingly severe impacts of federal administrative actions and proposed policies” targeting transgender procedures performed on minors.

“There is no doubt that this is a painful and significant change to our organization and a challenge to CHLA’s mission, vision, and values,” hospital executives wrote in an internal email to staff.

CTYHD has primarily performed transgender procedures on minors using public insurance. CHLA is also more reliant on public funding than many other pediatric hospitals in California, making it especially vulnerable to federal funding changes.

Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order eliminating federal funding for chemical and surgical procedures for children identifying as transgender. The administration has also threatened potential legal consequences for institutions that continue such practices. US Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed federal prosecutors to investigate doctors who perform gender-related surgeries on minors.

“Parents have been betrayed by politically captured profiteers at every step,”  Bondi said in a memo. “These ‘professionals’ have deployed junk science and false claims about the effects of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ to justify the barbaric practice of surgically and chemically maiming and sterilizing children.”

The internal email from CHLA executives warned that continuing to operate the clinic could jeopardize the hospital’s ability to care for “hundreds of thousands” of other children. It also referenced warnings from federal agencies of the consequences that would be imposed should they continue transgender procedures on minors.

“These threats are no longer theoretical,” the note said. “Taken together, the Attorney General memo, HHS review, and the recent solicitation of tips from the FBI to report hospitals and providers of GAC strongly signal this Administration’s intent to take swift and decisive action, both criminal and civil, against any entity it views as being in violation of the executive order.”