Donald Trump claimed recently that hospitals are performing what he called “reverse surgery” on transgender patients at his direction, apparently referring to agreements his administration has reached with hospitals over gender-affirming care.
“In fact, hospitals now are doing reverse surgery at my order,” Trump said during an Aug. 21 campaign rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. “They’re doing reverse surgery. Nobody ever heard about it.”
There is no presidential order requiring hospitals or physicians to reverse gender-affirming procedures. Instead, Trump’s Justice Department has reached agreements with Texas Children’s Hospital, Cleveland Clinic and, most recently, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center requiring or funding services for people who voluntarily seek to detransition while restricting those institutions’ provision of gender-affirming care to minors.
Cleveland Clinic agreed in June to commit $2 million in detransition-related care, which can include hormonal and endocrine care, fertility services, psychological support and surgical revision or reconstruction. The Clinic said it already provided such services.
The settlement also commits Cleveland Clinic to not offer most gender-affirming medical interventions to minors for the next 20 years, including at facilities outside Ohio. Texas Children’s has agreed to permanently cease providing specified gender-affirming treatments to minors and established a clinic providing free detransition services for five years.
Republicans celebrated the Cleveland agreement, with Ohio Rep. Josh Williams posting on X/Twitter that the Republican Party was “vindicated.”
TransOhio Executive Director Dara Adkison, however, noted that detransition services were already part of gender-affirming health care. “Ohio is incredibly trans and queer, and no one person, hospital, or government agency will change that,” Adkison told Signal Cleveland.
Trump and other Republicans have frequently focused on gender-affirming surgery for transgender minors, but research indicates those procedures are rare — and gender-affirming care is not exclusive to transgender patients. A 2024 JAMA Network Open study examining insurance claims for nearly 23 million minors found no gender-affirming surgical procedures associated with a transgender or gender-diverse diagnosis among children 12 and younger. Among minors ages 13 to 17, such procedures were rare and overwhelmingly chest-related.
The researchers also identified gender-affirming breast reductions for cisgender boys with gynecomastia. Of 151 breast reductions among cisgender male and transgender or gender-diverse minors in the study, 97 percent were performed on cisgender boys.
Despite Trump’s claim, no government official has the legal authority to order doctors to perform surgery. Performing surgery without a patient’s informed consent can constitute medical battery and, depending on the circumstances, criminal conduct. “Reverse surgery” is not a standard medical practice, and none of the agreements give the government authority to force someone to undergo such a procedure.
The twisted irony is difficult to miss: the same administration boasting that doctors are performing surgery “at my order” is using the power of the federal government to restrict people’s ability to make their own medical decisions.
This story is brought to you by Rosedale Health and Wellness and Dudley’s Place.
