Another Blow to Planned Parenthood: Gender-Affirming Care Clinics Are Dropping Like Flies

As my colleague Katie Jerkovich reported in early July, the Department of Justice has subpoenaed doctors and clinics involved in performing transgender medical procedures and prescribing alteration drugs to minors.

The Department of Justice announced that it has issued nearly 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics that have been involved in performing transgender medical procedures on children.
In the DOJ announcement on Wednesday, the department said its investigation is looking into things like healthcare fraud, false statements, and more.
Quoting Attorney General Pamela Bondi, "Medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology will be held accountable by this Department of Justice," it added in the release.

Along with Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s letter in May to healthcare providers encouraging a change in the diagnosis and treatment of gender dysphoria, buttressed by the SCOTUS decision in United States v. Skrmetti which upheld a Tennessee law barring "gender affirming" treatments for minors while also rejecting the claims that transgenders are part of a protected class and that any ban amounted to sex discrimination, the handwriting is now on the wall. The years-long push to transition kids both culturally and governmentally is no longer financially or legally viable.

Whether certain doctors or clinics were under this subpoena or not, what has followed is a rash of closures of the leading gender-affirming care hospitals and clinics in the U.S.

HHS Sends Letter to Medical Providers and Boards Urging Changes to 'Gender-Affirming Care' Protocols

Children's Hospital in Los Angeles was one of the first, officially shuttering its trans-youth center on July 17.

🚨 HUGE WIN! 🚨

The largest trans-youth center in the US at Children’s Hospital LA is CLOSED, thanks to the Trump admin cutting funds for “gender-affirming care” on kids. Gays Against Groomers celebrates this victory for protecting children from irreversible procedures.

Keep… pic.twitter.com/uldSjSEjar
— Gays Against Groomers (@againstgrmrs) July 17, 2025

"Keep fighting!" the above post urged.

On July 18, UChicago Medicine announced they were also closing out their center. Days after, Rush University Medical Hospital also ceased offering these services.

UChicago Medicine has discontinued gender-affirming care for minors “effective immediately,” the latest Chicago hospital to do so in recent months.
The health system said it was a “difficult decision,” but that it suspended the care to ensure it could continue to care for “all Medicare and Medicaid patients,” which make up “the majority of those [UChicago Medicine] serves.”
The health system said it was working with patients on a plan going forward, but didn’t elaborate. It did not answer questions about what specific services were being cut or if patients under 18 or 19 were impacted.

And heading into the next week, on Monday, the Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C. cried uncle.

Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., will no longer provide gender transition medical care, according to an announcement from the hospital on Monday.
The "Gender Development Program" page on the website displays a message that explains the changes will go into effect on Aug. 30.
"In light of escalating legal and regulatory risks to Children’s National, our providers, and the families we serve, we will be discontinuing the prescription of gender-affirming medications," the message reads. "Mental health and other support services for LGBT patients remain available. You are always welcome at Children’s National for your other medical needs."
"We know this change will have a significant impact on affected patients, families and staff. Our care teams are working directly with families of current patients to support them," it adds.

It is apparent that without federal tax dollars pouring into these clinics, they could no longer afford to operate. Why is that? Was the gender-affirming focus really about helping children or just about collecting more money? Inquiring minds want to know, and the DOJ is on the case to find out.

In the case of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), it clearly appears to be the latter. With the SCOTUS decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health overturning Roe v. Wade, and pro-life states instituting restrictive abortion laws, PPFA recognized that abortion was no longer a main source of revenue generation. But so-called gender-affirming care? Here was their opportunity for a new cash cow. In 2023, PPFA went full-court press in promoting these services as part of their offerings.

Supreme Court Hands Tennessee and America a Major Win in Transgender Transition Case

Gender affirming care (GAC) extends beyond just being life-saving healthcare. It also builds confidence, reduces anxiety and contributes to improved mental health. If you are looking for GAC, please reach out to your local Planned Parenthood health center: 1-800-230-PLAN. 💙 pic.twitter.com/3FsGuMu563
— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) November 29, 2023

Planned Parentood @PPFA has shifted their business model from abortion to pushing transgenderism on minors. Watch this video of them telling kids there is “medication” they can take to “pause” their puberty for a bit, and that it is completely safe. pic.twitter.com/Oih41mh4Tx
— Gays Against Groomers (@againstgrmrs) December 9, 2023

The Washington Free Beacon did a 2023 investigation into PPFA and its gender-affirming care practices. They documented how, in 30 minutes or less, PPFA was diagnosing and recommending puberty blockers for people suffering from gender dysphoria who didn't want to be waitlisted for access to the packed gender clinics.

Fred’s story—corroborated through nursing and medical board complaints, locational data, prescriptions, text messages, emails, and other documents reviewed by the Free Beacon—is a microcosm of how the nation’s largest abortion provider is eroding the already thin guardrails on gender medicine in America. As waitlists swell at clinics like Children’s National, and as concern mounts about the perils of rushed transition, many young people are using Planned Parenthood to skip the line and circumvent the safeguards, making it much more difficult to gatekeep what was once a tightly regulated treatment.
That dynamic has sparked criticism of the organization from an unlikely source: the liberal psychologist who helped bring pediatric gender medicine to the United States.
"I have always been a very strong supporter of Planned Parenthood and am pro-choice," said Laura Edwards-Leeper, who co-founded the nation’s first pediatric gender clinic, at Boston Children’s Hospital, in 2007. "But they have taken on something that they are not equipped to handle." The lack of gatekeeping is so bad, she added, that some of her patients received hormones from Planned Parenthood before coming to her for an assessment.

Gender affirming care is essential and life saving health care, backed by every major medical association in the U.S. (like @AmerMedicalAssn & @APA) for trans and nonbinary youth.

1.3 million U.S. doctors agree. Lawmakers: Leave health care decisions to the experts and patients. pic.twitter.com/3vbFVtWYhK
— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) July 3, 2024

In May, the Daily Signal did another exclusive confirming that PPFA's gender-affirming care services were at an "all-time high."

Here’s what we do know. Planned Parenthood is, by its own admission, “the second-largest provider of hormone therapy” in the nation. Thanks to other publicly available reporting we can reasonably infer that gender services in particular have caused a spike in this category.

Gender clinics across the country are falling like dominoes. Despite this injunction against stripping PPFA of federal funding, they will not be able to capitalize on this and pick up the slack--if there is any slack to take up. More than 25 states in the U.S. have instituted policies and bans restricting transgender procedures and treatments for minors, and with the blessing of the SCOTUS decision in United States v. Skrmetti, they will not be easily challenged.

So, it seems that mutilating children for social status and gain is no longer in favor or profitable.

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