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Exclusive: Trump Admin Presses Kaiser Permanente on Informed Consent Policies for Gender-Transition Services
Two detransitioners have accused Kaiser Permanente facilities of rushing them into gender-transition procedures when they were minors.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz sent a letter to Kaiser Permanente on Friday requesting information surrounding the medical group’s informed consent policies regarding gender-transition care, National Review has exclusively learned.
The request is part of a broader effort by CMS and other White House departments to crack down on sex-trait modification services for minors and ensure that patients of all ages are receiving informed consent about the long-term and potentially irreversible effects of gender-transition medical interventions.
While Kaiser Permanente recently paused gender-transition surgeries for patients under age 19, the medical group is still providing nonsurgical medical interventions for transgender-identifying minors, including cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers. That’s why CMS, which falls under the Health and Human Services, is turning up the heat to ensure that the medical group is abiding by the federal government’s informed consent guidelines for Medicare and Medicaid eligibility.
“In 2023, two minor patients came forward to say that they did not receive sufficient services necessary to properly evaluate, understand, and diagnose their full psychological condition prior to receiving puberty blockers and life altering and irreversible surgeries from Kaiser Permanente facilities,” Oz wrote in his letter in reference to Chloe Cole and Kayla Lovdahl, two women who now regret the gender-transition procedures they underwent as children. “Specifically, legal complaints were filed against the Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center and the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center.”
Oz demanded in his September 12 letter that Kaiser Permanente share information within 30 days about the counseling and mental health services that the medical group provides to children who are expressing gender dysphoric symptoms, “including whether Kaiser Permanente performs a comprehensive assessment of the developmental and diagnostic mental health of pediatric patients prior to pursuing additional interventions.”
Oz is also seeking information surrounding “the adequacy of informed consent protocols for children with gender dysphoria, including how children are deemed capable of making these potentially life-changing decisions and when parental consent is required,” as well as “how Kaiser monitors any adverse events related to these procedures, particularly children who later look to detransition, and have concerns about the care they received.”
As National Review has exclusively reported, HHS filed a proposed rule earlier this summer that would, if enacted, withhold Medicaid and Medicare funding from any hospital or health care clinic that provides gender-transition medical services to children. The FBI is probing select hospitals and the Department of Justice also subpoenaed health care providers and gender clinics surrounding their gender-transition services for minors.
As NR reported last month, the Trump administration’s crackdown has prompted a host of hospitals and gender clinics to restrict in some capacity their gender-transition services to minors. That list of hospitals includes Yale New Haven Health, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Phoenix Children’s Hospital, Stanford Medicine, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Denver Health, UCHealth, Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, University of Chicago Medicine, Rush Medical Center, Mount Sinai, NYU Langone, Penn State Health, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania Health System, Children’s Hospital of Richmond, VCU Health, Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters, Seattle Children’s Hospital, Children’s National Hospital, and Kaiser Permanente.