Children’s National Hospital in Washington “paused prescriptions of puberty blockers and hormone therapy” for transgender-identifying youth there in response to a Trump directive. / Credit: Daquella manera/Wikipedia/CC BY 2.0

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 24, 2025 / 17:23 pm (CNA).

Several children’s hospitals across the country that have performed transgender surgeries on minors are halting the procedures in response to President Donald Trump’s executive actions and his administration’s regulatory changes.

Hospital systems and individual hospitals in California; New York; Washington, D.C.; Colorado; Illinois; Pennsylvania; and other states have announced changes in recent weeks in how they treat children who believe they are the opposite sex. Some transgender clinics are shutting down entirely.

One prominent clinic that performed these operations — the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles — shut down on Tuesday, July 22. The clinic is facing an ongoing lawsuit from a formerly transgender-identifying woman who alleges that doctors fast-tracked her into a hormonal and surgical gender transition beginning when she was only 12 years old.

The clinic’s medical director, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, also faced scrutiny last year for allegedly blocking the publication of a taxpayer-funded study because the results failed to find any mental health benefits for children who are given transgender drugs, according to the New York Times.

“Despite this deeply held commitment to supporting L.A.’s gender-diverse community, the hospital has been left with no viable path forward except to close the Center for Transyouth Health and Development,” the clinic announced ahead of its closure.

In California, Stanford Medicine and Kaiser Permanente also recently announced they would halt all transgender surgeries for minors amid new federal rules.

Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., also announced a shift this week, displaying a message on its Gender Development Program webpage that affirmed it would stop prescribing transgender drugs to minors by Aug. 30 “in light of escalating legal and regulatory risks.”

Last week, University of Chicago Medicine displayed a message on its Trans CARE webpage to announce an immediate end to all transgender surgeries and drugs for children “in response to continued federal actions.” The message called the decision “difficult” and added that “this news will have a significant impact on our patients.”

Other hospitals that announced they would conform to the federal rules include the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, New York University Langone Health, and Denver Health.

A major shift in health care norms

Health care systems, including pediatric hospitals, have performed thousands of transgender operations on children across the country in recent years. 

These medical interventions range from surgeries to alter the appearances of the minor’s genitals or chest to make them appear more similar to the opposite sex to puberty blocking drugs and hormone treatments that prevent natural bodily developments that occur during puberty.

The medical watchdog group Do No Harm found nearly 14,000 instances of doctors facilitating “gender transitions” in children between 2019 and 2023 based on publicly available insurance claims.

The dataset — which found nearly 5,750 surgeries — is incomplete because it does not account for uninsured patients, which lead the researchers to believe the number is higher.

In January, Trump signed an executive order to prohibit hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements from performing transgender operations or providing transgender drugs to anyone under the age of 19.

The policy changes from health care systems and hospitals come as the federal government has bolstered enforcement action against health care providers that have not yet conformed to these rules. The rules have been subject to lawsuits from LGBT organizations.

Mary Rice Hasson, the director of the Person and Identity Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told CNA that the policy shift among hospitals is “good news.” She urged Congress to put a permanent halt to these programs through legislation.

“Over a dozen hospital-based ‘gender’ programs have closed their harmful sex-rejection ‘services’ for kids and adolescents,” Hasson said. “Kids who would have suffered disabling, disfiguring, and sterilizing ‘gender’ hormones and surgeries will be spared — for now.”

Hasson said, however, that the “bad news” is that “not one of these programs has acknowledged the harm done on their watch.”

“They are shuttering these programs for fear of losing federal funds but have not repudiated the barbaric practices that masquerade as ‘gender care,’” she added. “Most of these hospitals are poised to resume these programs if the political winds shift leftward.”

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA that recent practices from these hospitals, such as transgender drugs and surgeries, “violate human dignity by harming and mutilating the lives of those whose health they are supposed to be serving and protecting.”

“Even though individuals who have undergone gender reassignment surgeries will frequently report in the short term that they are happy and that their surgeries improved their sense of well-being, as time passes, a growing number of them begin to realize the high cost of that tenuous peace and seek to ‘detransition,’” he said. 

“Sadly, in many of these situations permanent and irreversible bodily damage may have already been done.”

Amid the policy shifts, Pacholczyk said hospitals can now “address the real needs of these individuals with compassion by directing them toward supportive psychotherapy that seeks to explore and address any underlying psychiatric issues that may be prompting their desire to gender-transition.”

“Our sex is a given determinant of our innermost being from God, not a personally-negotiable or otherwise ‘reassignable’ [quality], even if we may face significant struggles to accept and fully integrate this remarkable gift,” he said.

Pope Leo XIV delivers the Angelus address on July 13, 2025, from Liberty Square in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, where he is spending a two-week summer break. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 24, 2025 / 15:35 pm (CNA).

In a letter this week, Pope Leo XIV encouraged the prior provincials of the Dominicans to “listen to the Holy Spirit, who continues to guide the Church.”

Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, Missouri. / Credit: eurobanks/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jul 24, 2025 / 15:05 pm (CNA).

Missouri filed a lawsuit this week against the national Planned Parenthood organization, alleging that the abortion giant has “systematically misled” women about the risks associated with chemical abortion pills.

On Wednesday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced that his office had filed a lawsuit in state circuit court against Planned Parenthood Federation of America, alleging that the corporation “systematically misled women about the dangers of chemical abortions in order to cut costs and drive up revenue at the risk of women’s health and safety.”

Bailey said the abortion provider promulgates “dangerous claims” about the drug, including claiming that it is safer than common household drugs such as Tylenol.

This is “despite FDA labeling and peer-reviewed studies” showing severe adverse events associated with the pill rising in some cases to the double digits.

Concerns about the safety of chemical abortion pills have been heightened in recent months after a bombshell study in April found that more than 10% of women who take an abortion pill will suffer “serious adverse events,” including hemorrhaging, infections, and other health crises. 

U.S. Food and Drug Commissioner Marty Makary said in June that his agency will conduct a review of the abortion drug mifepristone following that study and several other investigations into the safety of the pills.

The lawsuit alleges that Planned Parenthood violated the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, a state-level consumer protection law.

Bailey’s office said the state is seeking nearly $2 million in civil penalties as well as “up to $1,000 in damages or restitution for every Missouri woman Planned Parenthood provided abortion pills to in the past five years.” The suit is also demanding paybacks into the state Medicaid system.

“The lies must stop. We’re holding the national Planned Parenthood entity accountable for the lies it tells women in Missouri and across the nation,” Bailey said in the release, adding: “No one is above the law, not even Planned Parenthood.”

Though the government has moved in recent months to investigate the safety of abortion pills, President Donald Trump said prior to his inauguration in January that it was his “commitment” to ensure that abortion pills remain available in the U.S.

Chemical abortions account for about half of the abortions in the United States every year.

Abortion advocates have increasingly turned to chemical abortions in the wake of the 2022 repeal of Roe v. Wade. Numerous states have instituted abortion bans after that repeal, though abortion pills have remained widely available.

The “Alta Sartoria” Dolce & Gabbana fashion show took place July 15, 2025, on the pedestrian-only Sant’Angelo Bridge, found directly in front of Castel Sant’Angelo, an ancient mausoleum later used as a papal fortress. / Credit: ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images

Rome Newsroom, Jul 24, 2025 / 12:05 pm (CNA).

The Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana put a spotlight on a new design collection inspired by Catholic liturgical garb in a show on the Sant’Angelo Bridge in Rome last week.

The grounds at the Sanctuary of La Sainte-Baume. / Credit: Sanctuary of La Sainte-Baume

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 22, 2025 / 16:17 pm (CNA).

Tucked away in a rocky mountain in southeast France is a cave formed by natural erosion called La Sainte-Baume, where Mary Magdalene lived.

Zurich, Switzerland. / Credit: Gianfranco Vivi/Shutterstock

CNA Newsroom, Jul 22, 2025 / 08:42 am (CNA).

The Zurich public prosecutor’s office accuses Sanija Ameti of publicly disparaging religious beliefs and disturbing religious peace.

Pope Leo XIV greets residents of St. Martha Home for the Elderly in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, during a visit on July 21, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 21, 2025 / 15:12 pm (CNA).

After spending time praying in the chapel, the Holy Father personally greeted approximately 20 elderly people, all between the ages of 80 and 101.

The Muñoz family gives Pope Leo XIV a T-shirt that reads “Da Pope” after Mass in Albano, Italy, on Sunday, July 20, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Jul 21, 2025 / 14:06 pm (CNA).

Marcel and Ann Muñoz, along with their three children, met Pope Leo XIV after Mass on July 20 at the Cathedral of Albano and gifted him a shirt that reads “Da Pope.”

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki. / Credit: Archdiocese of Cologne

CNA Newsroom, Jul 21, 2025 / 09:32 am (CNA).

The Archdiocese of Cologne has dismissed a canonical complaint filed against Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki by German abuse survivors to Pope Leo XIV.

St. Thomas More. / Credit: Public domain

Canterbury, England, Jul 19, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

St. Dunstan’s Parochial Church Council in Canterbury says it “would very much welcome communication with the Vatican” about exhuming Thomas More’s skull.