Biden admin pushed group to cut trans surgery age requirements, faces probe

A U.S. House Committee has launched a probe of the Biden-Harris administration after reports that the White House pressured the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, a leading professional nonprofit association, to remove the age limits for transgender surgeries and drugs for minors.

Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., chair of the Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services, sent a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra opening the probe, which requests all documentation and communication around the alleged “political interference” and whether HHS has pressured other medical groups to alter its guidance.

Critics have raised concerns that those surgeries, which do irreversible changes to the body, are often regretted. They argue that children cannot really understand or consent to the procedures, which include removing breasts or male genitalia and rendering boys and girls permanently unable to have children of their own one day.

“We are concerned that HHS officials, acting in their official capacity, inappropriately applied pressure for changes to international pediatric medical standards,” the letter said. “Officials applied this inappropriate pressure by urging for the removal of age limits that expands the pool of children and adolescents recommended for irreversible gender transition surgical procedures.”

Pointing to reporting from The New York Times, the committee said in its letter that WPATH published a draft of its recommendations online which included age limits of 14 for hormone drugs, “age 15 for transgender mastectomies, age 16 for transgender breast augmentation and facial surgery, and age 17 for transgender genital surgeries and hysterectomies.”

Emails reportedly show that Biden administration officials, including Admiral Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for HHS who is a transgender woman, pressured the group to remove the age limits altogether. McClain’s committee said emails show WPATH staff initially did not want to do so but gave in to the pressure.

“Despite WPATH’s initial minimum age recommendations, Admiral Levine and [Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Sarah] Boateng’s clear, concise instructions to remove age recommendations from SOC-8 led to their ultimate removal, notwithstanding the Biden Administration’s now public statement that it opposes providing such surgeries to minors,” the letter said.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

“The Biden Administration’s advocacy for expanding the pool of vulnerable children subjected to life-altering procedures they may later regret is reprehensible,” the letter said. “Emails indicating that this advocacy was done for political advantage – possibly to satisfy extremist elements of its base – is even more outrageous.

“Dr. Marci Bowers, the president of WPATH, has gone so far as to dismiss the responsibility of medical providers for procedures performed on child patients who she has said must ‘own’ final transition decisions and “should not be blaming the clinician or the people who helped guide them” for later regrets about irreversible surgeries,” the letter added.

McClain’s subcommittee and the Federal Workforce Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, also have an investigation into reports that healthcare providers have been fraudulently billing Medicaid for pediatric transgender work.