Submitted by Office of AG Todd Rokita
U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday announced bold federal actions to protect children from chemical and surgical mutilation done in the name of “gender transition.”
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita was one of two state attorneys general attending the announcement in the nation’s capital. Texas AG Ken Paxton was also in attendance.
“We must protect our kids and put an end to these irreversible and harmful experimental procedures that often lead to lifelong regret,” AG Rokita said afterward. “We are blessed to have an administration in the White House fully committed to the same kind of commonsense values that prevail among everyday Hoosiers in Indiana.”
Secretary Kennedy signed a declaration stating that “sex-rejecting treatments on children do not meet professionally recognized standards of health care.”
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), announced Thursday that his agency would release a notice of proposed rulemaking to prohibit hospitals from performing any kind of sex change procedures on children under age 18 as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Under another proposed CMS rule, Medicaid would no longer fund the procedures for minors.
These actions, among others, came a day after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which would criminalize the act on minors.
In Indiana, AG Rokita has prioritized protecting children from what most people consider to be cruel and dangerous procedures.
In federal court, AG Rokita has strenuously and successfully defended an Indiana law enacted in 2023 that prohibits medical practitioners from providing gender transition procedures to minors, including surgeries, hormone treatments, and puberty blockers.
In 2024, AG Rokita co-led a successful 22-state amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the State of Tennessee’s authority to enforce a law that – similar to Indiana’s – prohibits medical interventions before age 18 intended to alter boys’ or girls’ appearance and physiology so that they resemble members of the opposite sex.
Also in 2024, AG Rokita and 14 other states successfully sued the Biden administration over a rule transforming a federal prohibition on sex discrimination into one on gender identity discrimination. The rule could have forced medical providers to perform surgeries and administer hormones to both children and adults for the purpose of gender transition.
Click here to see a video of Thursday’s announcement.