The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Friday it is launching an investigation into Seattle Children’s Hospital over its gender-affirming care for minors, the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s attempts to end the practice nationwide.
In a post on X, HHS said the hospital had been referred to the Office of Inspector General for “failure to meet professional recognized standards of health care” under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new declaration rejecting gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
The investigation could result in the hospital losing its Medicare and Medicaid funding.
The declaration, released Dec. 18, claims that gender-affirming care, including hormones and surgeries, is “neither safe nor effective” and fails “to meet professional recognized standards of health care.”
A coalition of Democratic-led states, including Washington, this week sued HHS over the declaration.
HHS did not immediately respond to a Friday request for comment. The hospital also did not respond to a request for comment.
Seattle Children’s Hospital operates a gender clinic that has long been a target of the Trump administration’s ire. The hospital says it “provides gender-affirming medical care and support for adolescents whose gender identity is different from their sex at birth.”
Recently unsealed court documents revealed Seattle Children’s Hospital successfully quashed a Justice Department subpoena earlier this year seeking highly sensitive and personal information about the providers of gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.
The administration also stripped the hospital of hundreds of thousands of dollars in National Institutes of Health grants for research projects because the agency said it wasn’t going to fund research based on gender identity.
Kennedy’s declaration is part of a new Trump administration crackdown on medical care for transgender youth.
Aside from the declaration, the HHS last week proposed two new policies that threaten to revoke federal Medicare and Medicaid funding for any doctors, hospitals and clinics in the country that provide minors with transgender-related treatments.