A major pediatric gender-affirming care program affiliated with Yale University will stop providing puberty blockers and hormone therapies to patients under 19 years old. Behavioral and mental health services will continue, though the medical treatment component ends immediately in response to federal executive action and legal uncertainty.
Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and Yale New Haven Health, the state’s top pediatric providers, announced this week that youth medication services will be wound down or terminated. Connecticut Children’s is “winding down” its entire pediatric gender care program, while Yale will discontinue the medication portion but retain counseling and care coordination.
Yale’s leadership cited increasing legal complexity driven by Executive Order 14187 signed by President Trump on January 28, 2025, which aims to withdraw federal funding from institutions providing gender-affirming medical care to minors. University officials described the decision as a difficult but necessary step given evolving federal policy and the risk of legal penalties or funding losses. Yale will continue to provide mental health support in a “compassionate care environment” during this transition.
Advocacy groups and affected families criticized the move as politically driven and harmful to youth with gender dysphoria. Melissa Combs, a Connecticut parent whose 16-year-old receives care at Yale, said the shift reflects federal pressure rather than state healthcare values, and warned of adverse consequences for ongoing care access. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and Governor Ned Lamont decried the federal rules as fear-driven and disruptive to patient care.
This development mirrors another recent Supreme Court ruling (U.S. v. Skrmetti), which upheld a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors and confirmed that age‑based restrictions need only meet rational basis review under the Constitution. Similar wind-downs have occurred at other institutions, including Stanford Medicine and Kaiser Permanente, which paused surgeries for minors despite similar ongoing non‑surgical support in other states.
Hospitals nationwide face intensified scrutiny: the Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to more than twenty providers of pediatric gender care over suspected violations of federal law, increasing institutional caution around offering such services to minors.
