The Trump administration is making an all-out push to shut down the transgender agenda.
It is going beyond cutting off taxpayer funds for “gender-reassignment” surgeries for young people, it is actually brokering deals with hospitals to shut down transgender youth clinics.
Another two major hospital systems have reached deals with the Trump administration to keep their transgender youth clinics shut down, and the list is getting longer.
NYU Langone Health and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center have agreed to stop providing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and gender-transition surgeries to minors under settlements announced by the Justice Department. NYU Langone will also pay $8.5 million, while UPMC will pay $950,000.
The agreements resolve federal investigations into potential violations of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the False Claims Act and other federal healthcare laws, including allegations involving billing practices. Importantly, DOJ says the claims are allegations, no liability was determined, and both hospital systems expressly denied wrongdoing.
Attorney General Todd Blanche made clear that the administration views the settlements as part of a much broader effort.
"The Department of Justice is fighting to protect our nation's children and working tirelessly to reach agreements with hospitals to end so-called 'gender affirming care' for minors," Blanche said. "Today's resolutions send a clear message: hospitals that target children in these practices and then fraudulently obtain payment for the procedures will be held to account."
NYU Langone says it settled for a different reason.
"NYU Langone has not entered into this settlement because of any wrongdoing and has affirmatively denied any wrongdoing or liability in the agreement," spokesman Steve Ritea said, according to the New York Post. "We believe this resolution is in the best interests of our patients and their families, protecting them as well as our providers and the institution from prolonged litigation."
The agreement also removes the threat that NYU Langone would have to surrender confidential information previously sought by the federal government concerning minors treated for gender dysphoria, according to Ritea.
NYU and UPMC aren't isolated cases. As journalist Benjamin Ryan reported, the two systems join Mount Sinai Health System, Texas Children's Hospital, Cleveland Clinic and Connecticut Children's Medical Center in reaching agreements with the administration over transgender medical interventions for minors. Ryan reports that at least 40 pediatric gender clinics had already closed or reduced services by early 2026 amid the administration's broader crackdown.
Mount Sinai's agreement included a monetary payment and $2 million designated for patients allegedly harmed by gender-transition procedures received as minors. UPMC had already shuttered its pediatric gender clinic in June 2025, while NYU Langone had stopped and later briefly resumed services before closing the program again.
And DOJ says it isn't finished.
"Our efforts and investigations into other providers are ongoing," Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said. "Those that have broken the law and not resolved their potential liability will be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible."
The pressure isn't coming from DOJ alone.
As RedState's Ward Clark reported last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized a rule ending federal Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program funding for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and gender-transition surgeries for minors. Mental health services remain eligible for federal funding. The rule is scheduled to take effect October 13.
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said the policy was based on concerns about the evidence supporting the treatments and their potential long-term effects. CMS says the interventions can involve risks including infertility, impaired sexual function and diminished bone density.
That medical debate has increasingly spilled beyond the United States. European health authorities have taken a more cautious approach to pediatric medical transition in recent years, while the Trump administration has moved much further by attempting to use federal funding and enforcement powers to restrict the practice nationwide.
But the activist talking points about the alleged threats to transgender individuals because of either criticism of public policy or removal of taxpayer subsidies are coming under heavy scrutiny.
Clark reported in July on a published critique of a widely cited 2024 Trevor Project study that concluded state laws restricting transgender-related policies increased suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary young people.
That critique is substantive. University of Washington biostatistician Kathleen Kerr and co-authors J. Cohn and Peter Sim argued in Nature Human Behaviour that the original study's estimates were heavily dependent on post-treatment data from one state, Idaho, while also raising questions about its control groups, assumptions and the stability of its results under alternative statistical methods.
The original researchers disputed that criticism in a published response, defending their methodology and maintaining that their additional analyses supported the original findings. But the data shortcomings are real.
That matters because opponents of the hospital closures are making exactly that sort of argument.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani blasted NYU Langone's settlement as an institution "caving to pressure from the federal government," saying it would have "real and serious consequences" for transgender and gender-nonconforming young people.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) similarly accused the hospital of acquiescing to federal pressure, while the ACLU, NYCLU and Lambda Legal called the NYU and Mount Sinai settlements "beyond shameful."
Beyond the hyperbole, as I recently discussed in a VIP article, transgender violence is statistically imploding: It has fallen by half under the Trump administration.
But whatever the political rhetoric, the hospital settlements themselves are significant. Six major hospital systems have now reached agreements involving transgender medical interventions for minors. Federal Medicaid and CHIP dollars are scheduled to stop paying for the procedures next month. And DOJ is publicly warning other providers that its investigations are continuing.
For hospitals still operating pediatric gender clinics, the choice facing their lawyers and executives is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: fight the Trump administration in court and potentially face repercussions or shut the programs down.
