Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome and thank you for being here today for our big announcements. We have many speakers today and then we'll be taking questions from members of the press. It is my pleasure to welcome to the podium HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (00:24):
Good morning everybody. Thank you to all the officials who are joining us today, and I acknowledge many of you by name. There's a long list. A chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Andrew Ferguson, Senator Bill Cassidy, Senator Marsha Blackburn, Senator Roger Marshall, Senator James Lankford, Congressman Doug LaMalfa, Congressman John Joyce, Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger, Congressman Bob Onder, Congressman Robert Aderholt, Congressman Dan Crenshaw, Congressman Tim Walberg, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill, Administrator Mehmet Oz, Director Jay Bhattacharya, Commissioner Marty Makary, and Admiral Brian Christine, and a special thanks to Chloe Cole for being with us today to bravely share her odyssey.
(01:46)
Doctors assume a solemn obligation to protect children, yet doctors across the country now provide needless and irreversible sex rejecting procedures that violate their sacred hippocratic oath by endangering the very lives that they are sworn to safeguard. The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics battle to lie that chemical and surgical sex-rejecting procedures could be good for children who suffer from gender dysphoria.
(02:18)
They betrayed the estimated 300,000 American youth ages 13 to 17, conditioned to believe that sex can be changed. They betrayed their Hippocratic oath to do no harm. So-called gender-affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people. This is not medicine. It is malpractice. We're done with junk science driven by ideological pursuits, not the wellbeing of children.
(02:51)
A peer reviewed report published by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health last month confirms that sex- rejecting procedures impose medical dangers and lasting harm on children who receive these interventions. So today we are taking six decisive actions guided by gold standard science and the week one executive order from President Trump to protect children from chemical and surgical mutilation. This morning I signed a declaration, sex rejecting procedures are neither safe nor effective treatment for children with gender dysphoria.
(03:38)
These procedures fail to meet professionally recognized standards of care. Medical professionals or entities providing sex rejecting procedures to children are out of compliance with these standards of healthcare. This declaration is a clear directive to providers to follow the science, and the overwhelming body of evidence that these procedures hurt, not help children. Additionally, CMS is proposing two new rules. The first rule will bar hospitals that participate in Medicare and Medicaid, which is almost every hospital, from performing these dangerous and harmful procedures.
(04:20)
The second rule prohibits the federal Medicaid dollars from funding the sex-rejecting procedures on minors. The FDA is issuing warning letters to 12 manufacturers of breast binders, which are medical devices used for purposes such as assistance and recovery from cancer related mastectomies. The FDA is telling these companies that the illegal marketing of breast binders to children for the purpose of treating gender dysphoria commits significant regulatory violations and requires swift congressional or corrective action.
(04:58)
If the manufacturers don't comply, they could face enforcement actions, including product seizures. Furthermore, HHS is also moving to reverse the Biden administration's attempt to include gender dysphoria within the definition of disability. My Uncle Ted Kennedy was the primary author of the Americans With Disabilities Act and of the 1978 amendments that strengthened the Rehabilitation Act.
(05:27)
The Biden era amendments that designated gender dysphoria as a disability served the commercial interest of a predatory multi-billion dollar industry that betrayed the original intention of those laws, engendered widespread public resentments against those laws among the American people, and discredit the statutes in the public mind.
(05:52)
These are statutes that were designed to protect the most vulnerable Americans, and the misuse of these statutes for these purposes, injures the statutes themselves and injures other people who are entitled to that protection and who Americans want to see protected. Our proposed rule will reassure recipients of HHS funding that policies preventing or limiting sex-rejecting procedures do not violate disability non-discrimination requirements.
(06:23)
Finally, our Assistant Secretary of Health Admiral Brian Christine today signed a public health message to inform healthcare providers, families, and policymakers that current evidence does not support claims that puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and surgeries are safe and effective treatments for pediatric gender dysphoria. These announcements are grounded in evidence and shaped by compassion. President Trump has made child protection a national priority. The Make Our Children Healthy Again strategy demonstrates that commitment. Sex-rejecting procedures rob children of their futures. The MAHA Commission's strategy report calls for an end to overmedicalization of our children. Unnecessary medical interventions drive big money interests that push sex-rejecting treatments. Today's revenue for sex-rejecting drugs and surgeries in 2023 were estimated in one study to exceed $4.4 billion and on track to exceed 7.8 billion by 2030. One doctor was recorded callously describing sex-rejecting procedures as a big money maker.
(07:49)
Hospitals rake in millions of dollars by convincing boys and girls that a lifetime of off-label prescriptions for estrogen and testosterone blockers, chest reconstruction surgeries, and more are the only way to achieve true happiness and belonging in life. It's wrong. The Trump administration will not stand by while ideology, misinformation, and propaganda push vulnerable young people into decisions they cannot fully understand and that they can never reverse.
(08:24)
On my watch, HHS will stand for radical transparency and informed consent. We follow the evidence. We employ gold standard science. We honor the moral obligation to do no harm. There is divine worth in every person. It shines most brightly in our children. That worth commands us to protect them. And as long as I serve as HHS secretary, this agency will do so. Thank you all very, very much.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
[inaudible 00:09:08]-
Mehmet Oz (09:13):
Sorry. I thought I was last. I guess I'm not. Secretary Kennedy, thank you very much. His bold words tonight reflect a deep passion that he's expressed since very early in this administration. And it represents why HHS needs to be in the forefront of issues like this. The white paper that was crafted, it's several hundred pages long, but is actually a superb document, created a foundation for CMS, my agency, Medicare and Medicaid, to take bold action as well to address some of the challenges. But I want to take a second and outline where we are right now. There's an op-ed that Steph Carlton, my chief of staff who's over here somewhere, and I penned that just issued while we've been sitting here, and it highlights some of these issues. But of course, it all came out of the executive order of the president protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation, simple title, descriptive and accurate in its desire to do just that. And today we will deliver that to the president and to the secretary.
(10:14)
Many of you, as you walk through the front portal of this building, the Hubert Humphrey Building saw Senator Humphrey's quote on the side wall. And he speaks about the moral obligation of government to take care of those at the dawn of life, our children. 53% of children in America are in Medicaid or CHIP programs. So we provide insurance to most children and commercial insurance follow us, but we are in a weird place in America where we have mixed politics and medicine. And do you know what you get when you mix politics and medicine? Politics. There is no medicine left. We witnessed that with bizarre statements, predatory actions, and many other activities that I think have forced children to the tip of the spear where they have brunt the burden of this toxic combination. We've been told that permanently altering bodies of children, and the children are told this as well, we're bringing them lasting peace, but few have achieved the inner peace promised by the charlatans and that the talking heads, the media personalities, the social media posts, all these have created a dishonest narrative. And of course, many of these children are left with the most tragic parts of all the treatments that they've succumbed themselves to. Many physicians as well have been pressured into compliance. The white paper outlines this with the dangerous progressive ideology that treats children like lab mice.
(11:35)
And because often in medical school you're taught to go along to get along, they have not been willing to rear their heads and bravely say what they know to be right, which is that these procedures are wrong. Individuals who question their sexuality are treated by many medical professionals on the fast track, that's what it's called, approach to care, resulting in drastic interventions that merely increase the distress they're already suffering from. Under politicized medicine, people suffer long-term consequences.
(12:01)
Let me go through the three major categories, puberty blockers reduce bone density, alter brain development, which is a real problem when you're 11, 12, 13 years of age, and disrupt sexual function for the rest of your life, oftentimes. Cross-sex hormones cause irreversible changes, including infertility, loss of sexual function, even cardiovascular issues, as well as long-term cardioendocrine problems. And of course, the surgical interventions where you remove healthy organs, despicable and reprehensible as it is, permanently alter appearances and destroy children's lives.
(12:32)
So let's talk a moment right now about the big question. This dangerous fast track approach in invasive treatment, what it really does is slap a bandaid on a much deeper pathology, a much deeper problem, the underlying issue of gender dysphoria. It denies patients the opportunity to be seen for who they really are. The doctor can't look them in the eyes and treat them like a child that's confused and lost and needs help. They become an opportunity. They become eventually a victim. Reasonable evidence-based objections that a child's confusion might resolve over time have been ignored, even though it makes common sense. And it turns out from numerous studies now in Europe to be true. Again, we outlined these in the op-ed. And this is not how clinicians respond to the care of other pediatric issues, but it's how we respond to pediatric adolescent mental distress. And the medically honest approach is to at least start slowly, the least invasive possible psychotherapy, counseling, including family counseling, evaluation of other conditions like ADHD and autism, and of course, treatment of the anxiety and depression that so often is included with this diagnosis.
(13:40)
There's lots of reasons we're having this problem. Social media is obviously a concern. There's been an explosion of discussions within children's groups about these topics. The surge has also been accompanied by healthcare professionals advocating that there's not going to be any opportunity to push a child to think twice about the decision they might have wandered into mistakenly in a whimsical moment. And 57% increase in suicide rates over the last great data we have, which is from the teens, is also a concern, with teenage children bearing the brunt of this.
(14:13)
American taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for ideologically-driven experiments on our nation's youth. And hospitals that we deem must meet the minimum, the minimum quality standards of care and safety should not be conducting these experiments when we know so little about what is happening with our youth.
(14:31)
Now the important part. For these reasons, and I can go on and on this document, the white paper that Secretary commissions over 300 pages long, we're taking major steps at CMS to stop a funding process that has led to irreversible medical interventions with two major actions. The first, we're announcing a notice of proposed rulemaking that ends taxpayer funding of sex-rejecting procedures for children in Medicaid and CHIP full stop.
(15:06)
We don't provide healthcare to every child, but at 53% we've got most, and we're not going to let taxpayer money go to hurt these children and those children will no longer be hurt with this ideology. We know that inflicting these procedures on young people cost them and the Medicaid system countless dollars, not just in medical bills, but also all kinds of downstream issues while providers reap the rewards. Too many providers inappropriately profit from carrying out these destructive procedures.
(15:32)
And I'm just going to go through this grotesque laundry list of prices just so you're on the same page with what Secretary Kennedy started teasing at. According to a 2022 JAMA data, so it's very recent, the typical vaginoplasty, a vaginoplasty, a procedure a child does not need, costs $60,000. Shockingly, a phalloplasty, the creation of a penis, costs on average in America, according
Mehmet Oz (16:00):
… into this data, high quality, $1150,000 per child. I do believe with doing some work that these prices have continued to increase with increasing manufactured demand. And I must point out that the creation of a vagina in that case of a phalloplasty or a scrotoplasty where you add testicles, that's extra. This is a pathology that has afflicted the medical profession. It is shameful that clinicians have profiteered off this. I do not understand how it could possibly have been tolerated by the leadership of these institutions, but it will no longer be funded. And I can tell you, if they're so diehard desirous of helping children and they don't get paid, the question is, will they do these procedures? And I think we know the answer.
(16:46)
The second big thing, that's $250 million over the next decade of savings to the taxpayer, but that's irrelevant to this issue compared to the harm to the next generation to our future because kids are always our future.
(16:59)
Second, to reinforce the need to protect our children, we are announcing that certified Medicare and Medicaid hospitals, pretty much everyone in the hospital in the country, will no longer be permitted to perform certain sex rejecting procedures on children. Any hospital that does offer sex rejecting procedures to vulnerable populations of pediatric aged kids will no longer be able to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid program.
(17:23)
We want our hospitals returning to healing, not harming the patients entrusted with their care, or they're going to pay a very steep price. These actions are part of an all government effort led by President Trump and spearheaded by Secretary Kennedy to protect vulnerable individuals and genuinely make America healthy again. This is not just smart science-based health policy. It is our moral duty, as Senator Humphrey mentioned 50 years ago. I'm passionate about this issue. My whole team is passionate about this issue. Secretary Kennedy, God bless you for pushing forward on this.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Thank you, Dr. Oz. One of the most barbaric features of a society is the genital mutilation of its children. It's based on a medical dogma, sadly, that the normal, sometimes stressful experiences of boys and girls growing up is a pathology that requires medical intervention. Parents are told if they don't agree to these disfiguring and permanently sterilizing procedures, they're putting their child at increased risk of suicide, a baseless claim that has never been supported with good data.
(18:51)
Let's be honest, and I'm going to say what you're not supposed to say. Pushing transgender ideology in children is predatory, it's wrong, and it needs to stop. This ideology is a belief system that some teachers, some pediatricians and others are selling to children without their parents knowing sometimes or with a deliberate attempt to remove parents from the decision making. Puberty can be stressful, and for all of history, being a kid and interacting with kids from the opposite gender can be awkward, even confusing at times. But to see now, a society putting kids on a path of chest binders, drugs, castration, mastectomies, and other procedures is a path that now many kids regret.
(20:02)
And Chloe, I've got to say your testimony in front of the hill was one of the best descriptions I've heard on this issue ever. Maybe one of the best descriptions I've heard of any topic ever presented in front of Congress, and it's an honor to be here with you.
(20:23)
Let me be clear about something, and this is an important distinction. Sometimes it doesn't get mentioned. We're not talking about medically treating kids with a biological basis for differences in sexual development. What used to be called intersex, we're not talking about children with five alpha reductase deficiency, Kleinfelter syndrome, Turner syndrome, or other sex chromosome abnormalities. We're talking about an ideology that is supported by flawed science that every child as young as four years of age should pick from an array of genders. We've got high schools now where half the kids don't identify as a boy or girl. What's going on? To American hospitals and clinics, do not ask parents to leave the room in order to sell your transgender ideology to America's children.
(21:26)
How is it that a child cannot get an ibuprofen without their parents' consent at school? Yet, states like California are arguing that children should be able to make irreversible choices without their parents' knowledge. The UK actually did a comprehensive review in the Cass Commission of the medical literature and found there's no role for puberty blockers and many of these interventions. We as doctors have a duty to speak up, and that's why we're here, against this cruel practice. It's been hard to speak honestly on this topic. Many in academia who have challenged the dogma have been railroaded, dismissed, fired, or labeled in a form of modern day McCarthyism. Just ask the former Brown University professor, Lisa Lipman, whose research suggested that transgenderism was a socially contagious condition. Brown University persecuted her and did not renew her contract. And this is the story of many academics that are trying to speak common sense to this insanity. Let's stop with the labeling and let's have an honest conversation about what's best for America's children.
(22:52)
Today, the FDA is taking action. We are sending warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers for illegal marketing of breast binders for children for the purposes of treating gender dysphoria. Breast binders are a class one medical device with legitimate medical users such as being used by women after breast cancer surgery. And these binders are not benign. Long-term usage has been associated with pain, compromised lung function from atelectasis collapse, and even difficulty breastfeeding later in life. The warning letters will formally notify the companies of their significant regulatory violations and require prompt corrective action. And I want to say thank you, President Trump, for signing the executive order to have us look into this. Thank you to Secretary Kennedy for speaking directly to this issue, to Mehmet Oz for finally ending government-funded sex transition procedures in the United States. To Jim O'Neill for his leadership, Brian Christine, J. Badicharia, to Chloe for sharing her personal experience, to the entire team, to the many members here, Senators Marshall, Cassidy Langford, Blackburn, you've taken risk and stood up on this topic and stood for the what's right. Congressman Wahlberg, Anders, Aderholt, Harshberger, Crenshaw, AG Paxton. It's not easy to speak up on these issues and you've done it at personal career risk. Thank you for speaking up for American children. It's time.
(24:39)
I can't tell you the number of people that said, "Don't talk about this issue publicly." You talk about everything else in medicine, but do not ever talk about this on TV or in any public form. You've probably gotten the same advice. But we're going to keep fighting for American children.
Brian Christine (25:09):
Good morning. I'm Admiral Brian Christine, the Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services, and I have the privilege of being the senior flag officer in the Commission Corps of the United States Public Health Service. Welcome to you all, but especially welcome to you, Chloe. Today, we are taking decisive action to protect America's children from chemical and surgical mutilation and to restore evidence-based medicine and gold standard science to the forefront of federal health policy. What we found in our gender dysphoria review was truly alarming. From 2016 to 2019, the number of sex-rejecting procedures performed on children tripled. And despite the mounting evidence of harm and the reversals by European countries, the previous administration and my predecessor were driven by a warped ideology and a radical political agenda. And that is why I am signing this public health message today to ensure that healthcare providers understand their responsibility to put children's health and safety first.
(26:18)
As medical professionals, we have an ethical obligation to provide excellent care to our patients informed by the best evidence we have. And as such, we should refuse interventions that pose risks of unnecessary harm because our first mission is to do no harm. For the safety of our children, medical professionals should refuse to provide puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions. Instead, we must prioritize comprehensive psychosocial assessment and support. We must address co-occurring mental health conditions, and we must. We must provide compassionate, developmentally appropriate counseling. And finally, we must educate young families about the incredibly weak evidence for these medical interventions.
(27:08)
And let me be clear about this. This is not about politics. It is about science. It is about safety. It is about radical transparency. It is about trust. Our mission is to ensure that every American child receives medical care that is evidence-based, that is ethical and worthy of the public's confidence. For America to be healthy and great again, we need strong, healthy boys and girls who will have the chance to know the joy of coming together as one and starting their own family one day. And if they are subjected to these vile sex rejecting procedures, that cannot happen.
(27:54)
Protecting our children's health and their future is good medicine. Protecting our children's health and their future is our moral obligation. Today, I am offering the opportunity for every medical professional to absolutely reject harmful, irreversible procedures on minors and instead to prioritize medicine that puts the health of America's children first. All of us on this stage will continue to be guided by gold standard science, a dedication to radical transparency, and a commitment to truth. President Trump and Secretary Kennedy will stand for no less. Thank you all for being with us today. God bless President Donald Trump, God bless Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. God bless all of our vulnerable children who suffer from gender dysphoria and their families. God bless Chloe Cole and God bless our republic. Thank you.
Jay Bhattacharya (28:57):
I'm Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institute of Health. I was thinking about how we got to this moment today, and I was thinking about the power of science. And normally, at the NIH, and I say as myself and my own capacity and my career, I've always admired the power of science to do good for the world, to help us understand how the world works, to develop cures and treatments. But today is not a day to just talk about that, because we've also seen in this sorry episode that will go down as a dark episode in medical history, of how the power of enthrallment to a false science can damage and harm lives.
(29:42)
The hijacking of scientific institutions, the hijacking of scientific journals for the purpose of essentially enforcing groupthink is tremendously powerful. We saw this during the pandemic, and we've seen this in this episode today, that the idea about whether you need to have extraordinary interventions to halt the puberty of a child in order to prevent them from committing suicide.
(30:09)
That's a scientific question, right? It's lots of types of questions, but it is at heart a scientific question. Is it true? Is it true that if you don't a seed to the desires of a 10-year-old, 11-year-old child who thinks they're the other gender, and allow the doctors to do extraordinary measures that they're going to kill themselves?
(30:33)
The idea behind all these procedures was a false idea propagated first by science, by scientists, essentially asserting that the answer to that question, yes, if you don't let your child transition, they're more likely to commit suicide, that the answer to that question is yes, when in fact there was never any solid scientific evidence for that question.
(30:57)
The 300 plus page HHS report, the report that was done in the UK, the Cass report, the Scandinavian reports, all those came and looked at the scientific evidence and they all came to the same conclusion that the scientific evidence that the answer to that question is yes, is incredibly weak.
(31:18)
And so the question is, why did it take so long? Why did it take so long? And how did the first idea come in the heads of people to say, to assert falsely that there was strong scientific evidence to say that you must transition your kid or else they're going to commit suicide? And those are haunting questions for me as the director of the National Institute of Health, because the key idea in science is that when there are extraordinary claims made, you have to question them. Even when you have ideas that are well established, you have to question them.
(31:52)
And yet what happened was that there was essentially a groupthink that prevented excellent scientists from speaking up
Jay Bhattacharya (32:00):
… when they should have. The extraordinary courage of the authors of the HSS report, I don't know if you're all here in the room today, is stunning to me because they stuck their heads up. The extraordinary courage of Chloe Cole sticking her head up when it was almost impossible to do so. Why was it so impossible? Because the power of science to enthrall minds is almost unmatched in our society.
(32:26)
So what do we need to do? First, if you're a parent, don't ever let a doctor tell you, essentially blackmail you into thinking that you must see to a transition for your child, because if you don't, the child will kill themselves. There's no warrant for that. The scientific evidence does not support that and we should never… And I'm proud to be part of an administration that is putting an end to that practice. Second, this is the policy announcement. As director of the NIH, we have ended our support for research in support of gender transitions. But now there have been activist courts that have prevented us from getting rid of all of our portfolio of it. But by the end of this year, that's all going to be gone from our portfolio. It was junk science to begin with and we will not continue to support it.
(33:36)
Let me tell you an anecdote about this. There was a researcher that the NIH funded that did a study to answer the question, was it more likely that a child who didn't transition would commit suicide? That researcher found the answer was no. But because the researcher's ideology was so enmeshed in this, because if the answer is no, that means she might get canceled, she refused to release the study, refused to release the data. And we at the NIH have got the data from this researcher and made it available for other researchers to do replication studies and work on.
(34:12)
I'll tell you, I think to me, that is a absolute violation of what it means to be a scientist. When I find data that disagrees with my priors, my ideas about the way the world works, I change my mind. Actually, you know the easiest way to always be right, when you're wrong, you just change your mind. It's very simple. That's the beautiful thing about science.
(34:38)
So I made the announcement already about no longer funding this, but the second announcement, and this is really, really important to me. There are thousands of kids that have undergone this transition, and many of whom regret having undergone this transition. There are thousands of kids that are in mental distress because they've been through this, families torn apart. We are going to fund science to help them, because what I don't want is for the answers to those families to be based on basically no evidence or presumed knowledge that we don't actually have. We're going to do gold standard science to help those families, to help those kids that are detransitioning or thinking about detransitioning, because we have to follow wherever the evidence leads in order to protect children.
(35:24)
So Secretary Kennedy, President Trump, if you're listening, and all the distinguished congressmen and senators and others in the room, thank you. Thank you for your leadership on this issue. Thanks on the behalf of all the parents and kids of this country. I think we are turning a page in this. This will be remembered as a dark day. Today, we'll remember it as a bright day, but the episode of the last several years will remember it as a dark page in the history of science. And let's pray that we never have to do that again. Thank you.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Men are men. Men can never become women. Women are women. Women can never become men. Children are innocent and they need our protection. It takes organized efforts to deny these fundamental truths. Sadly, we've seen such efforts succeed from time to time. The denial of fundamental truths can destroy nations from within. At the root of the evils we face, such as the blurring of the lines between sexes and radical social agendas is a hatred for nature as God designed it and for life as it was meant to be lived. This ideology does not just deny biology, it declares war against it.
(37:14)
As part of the Biden administration's war on nature, this department perverted the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. They pretended that gender dysphoria was a disability to force healthcare providers and programs to mutilate minors. Without the reforms Secretary Kennedy made today, more children would be coerced into life altering interventions that many will deeply regret. Thankfully, President Trump and Secretary Kennedy are stopping this madness and stopping the war. Through the leadership of Paula Stannard and the Office for Civil Rights, our proposed rule would revise Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act to exclude gender dysphoria, not resulting from physical impairments. We are reassuring recipients of HHS funding. The policies preventing or limiting sex-rejecting procedures do not violate Section 504's disability non-discrimination requirements.
(38:12)
Previous speakers have discussed treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria, review of evidence and best practices, our rigorous study of the medical dangers posed to children from attempts to change their sex. Everyone should read this study.
(38:27)
Chloe, thank you for your relentless advocacy to protect children from harm. Body dysmorphia and gender dysmorphia and alienation and social contagion cause a lot of children to suffer. As Jay and Brian said, we are working on approaches and solutions. Today, we are drawing a line to stop these problems from becoming worse. Compassion compels us to do so. Thank you.
Chloe Cole (39:12):
Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here and to be able to speak on behalf of American children whose innocence and health are being compromised, whose lives are being ripped apart by ideologically driven medical experimentation. I represent a community of people who have been harmed by these procedures and yet largely are ignored by the same doctors, the same clinics and medical system that have harmed us. I've become an advocate for protecting children from what is often mistakenly referred to as gender-affirming care. Because it is by no means care, it is scientific, medical abuse that violates every tenet of medical ethics.
(40:12)
This ideology is festering at an unimaginable scale within our hospital systems, our culture, our communities, and to many within our own families. For me, it started with being lied to about who I was. By adults outside of my family, I was made to feel that the way that God beautifully made me was in fact a mistake, a mistake that could only be fixed by so called modern medicine. My doctors, rather than guiding me, they affirmed my childish misgivings about my developing body. My belief that I wasn't just a tomboy, that if I liked having short hair, if I liked being around the boys more, if I behaved more like my older brothers, I actually was a boy who just so happened to be born in a girl's body.
(41:21)
At 13 years old, I was administered puberty blockers and testosterone in high doses. And when I was only 15, they removed my breasts. My questions about whether I will be able to have children or about the future of my reproductive health and my overall health have gone unanswered, but that mastectomy ensured that I am never going to be able to nourish whatever children I may have. And this happened before I was even mature enough to understand that one day I would aspire to become a mother. Because of the moral failings of my doctors, I forever have lost significant parts of my identity as a now adult woman while I was still a child.
(42:24)
And there are tears that I don't show to the world. There is grief that every single day I carry with me silently. The only thing in the world that makes me angrier is knowing that this is continuing to happen to children all across the United States and throughout the globe. But they messed with the wrong kid. At 16 years old, I rejected the lies that I was sold. I detransitioned and I chose to face the world and sound the alarm on what is happening to my generation, both in the hopes that this would set forth a movement of young people who chose to break free from ideology and also that one day no child would ever have to speak up about this ever again.
(43:44)
And what this movement has achieved in such a small amount of time is far greater than I have ever dreamed of. 26 states now have passed laws to save children, laws that all have been upheld by the Supreme Court earlier this year. President Trump has signed countless executive orders to fight for biological reality, to fight for the protection of our kids. My own lawsuit filed by Center for American Liberty is finally moving forward. And of course, the Department of Health and Human Services has been a decisive part in our wins this first year of Trump's second term.
(44:33)
With the release of the peer reviewed gender dysphoria report, it has become official US policy that these treatments in children are questionable at best, life shattering at worst, and this industry needs to be challenged and taken down for the sake of future generations. Because there is no such thing as being transgender, nor children born in the wrong bodies. Every boy and every girl deserves to be loved the way that they were beautifully created in their mother's womb. And to the young people out there who are struggling with this mental illness, I want you to know that there is a better way out, and it's not too late to accept the beautiful way that God has created you.
(45:48)
My story turned out to be a success story, but it was only in spite of my doctors and the horrible things that they did to me, to my family. I am only one voice out of thousands of children, but our cries for help have finally been heard. And the Trump administration and the HHS and Secretary Kennedy have done an incredible job this year, ensuring that this abuse is going to seize one day. I am incredibly excited to see the many more wins that we are going to have moving forward in the next few years. On behalf of every single child who once was mistaken that they were transgender, thank you for everything.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Thank you, everyone. Thank you for all the comments today. We're now going to take questions from the press. Please keep your question to the reason we're here today. Also, if you can clearly state your name and your outlet, and if all the speakers want to stand up and be ready to answer questions and then who you'd like to ask your question to.
(47:38)
Sarah.
Sarah Owermohle (47:43):
Hi. Sarah Owermohle from CNN. I first wanted to ask just if you have a sense in Medicare and Medicaid, how much gender identity care was being funded or paid for? But also all of you mentioned in some capacity, mental healthcare resources. So does this go
Speaker 5 (48:00):
… with more support for mental healthcare and wellbeing in children.
Mehmet Oz (48:04):
Our estimate, we know in 2023 there's $30 million spent, our estimate is over 10 years it would've been $250 million at least. We have mental healthcare services available, [inaudible 00:48:16] Jay Bhattacharya's important work at the NIH is going to help us address what we should have always been searching for, which is the underlying emotional issues driving a lot of these behavioral changes and better ways of treating them. And I'm confident that with the money that we save, we have plenty of resources, but we had them any way to deal with this problem the right way. Putting a bandaid on this problem using aggressive surgery and chemical approaches was never wise.
Speaker 6 (48:47):
Katelynn.
Katelynn Richardson (48:53):
Hi, this is Katelynn Richardson with the Daily Caller News Foundation. My question is, do you think that we need medical billing codes for detransitioners or those who face adverse reactions from sex change procedures?
Mehmet Oz (49:06):
Looking at the building code situation, there's probably codes we could use already, but we will fix the codes if we can fix the kids. We're not going to let math, regulations, and money get in the way of helping these children for the same reason, we don't want to allow any of those resources to be used in a perverted way to harm children. These kids, and we've all spoken to this, their prefrontal cortexes are not yet mature scientifically, so condemning them to decisions that they make whimsically at those ages, no parent would allow to have happened. And I believe these procedures will fall in the deepest abyss of dark periods of American history like prefrontal lobotomies represent today. They should be a prehistoric relic that brings shame upon the profession.
Chloe Cole (49:57):
I think that it's incredibly important that within the medical system, we get measures passed and we have billing codes written for those who detransition or regret their transition or have been harmed by any of these procedures, even if they choose not to detransition. Because to speak to my own experience, as somebody who has gone through the system, the suffering doesn't end the moment that you detransition. These procedures are not reversible in any way. We don't know how they are going to affect the human body in the long term, but I myself and every other detransitioner I know has so many different medical concerns, they're not being addressed because our own doctors don't have any standards of care to refer to. They don't know what to do with us.
(50:55)
It's been five years since I've had my mastectomy, over four years since I've detransitioned and not a single doctor who I have been to has been able to help me with any of my concerns. Oftentimes when I go to a doctor and I tell them about my medical history, they just tried to refer me back to the same gender clinic system where I got hurt in the first place. This needs to change. Right now, there is no infrastructure that is prepared for the thousands of patients who regret this and have been harmed and will continue to be harmed until this has stopped. It doesn't just stop at protecting children and preventing what happened to me. We need to address what happens to those who have already been through this.
Speaker 6 (52:01):
Michael.
Mike Emanuel (52:09):
Hi, Mike Emanuel from Fox. Mr. Secretary, I have no doubt taxpayers and many parents are relieved by what you are doing, but do you worry about blue states and transgender activists tying you up in court over the next few years over these steps you're taking today?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (52:31):
I don't worry. I mean, I think that's going to happen. I mean, the number of lawsuits with my name on it right now is almost beyond counting. So we got, everything that we do here, we have excellent general counsel. We know what we're doing is legal and if people sue us, they're welcome to, but we're going to win the lawsuits.
Speaker 6 (53:07):
Jonathan. Jonathan Brown.
Jonathan Brown (53:12):
Hi, Jonathan with the Christian Post. What effects do you believe that these standards will have throughout the world in places where they're also struggling with these issues?
Speaker 7 (53:25):
So this department under President Trump's previous term launched the Geneva Consensus Declaration, which is a multilateral organization of many other member states that support each other on this issue, as well as other social issues. I just had the honor of speaking at the annual meeting of the Geneva Consensus Declaration about six weeks ago, and there was a lot of support. As you heard, there's been a lot of reference to scientific studies in other countries here. I think the report we've all talked about today that was published here will be read around the world and translated. So there is a lot of cooperation between many nations.
Speaker 6 (54:11):
Yes, right there.
Chelsea Cirruzzo (54:17):
Hi, Chelsea Cirruzzo at STAT News. What is the implementation timeline for many of these actions?
Mehmet Oz (54:28):
The notice of proposed rulemaking generally is a 60 to 90-day period of comment and following which we would evaluate all the answers and thoughts and the recommendations we hear and issue our final ruling.
Speaker 8 (54:42):
For the OCR rule, changing the definition of disability to exclude gender dysphoria has a 30-day comment period, and then we will finalize it.
Speaker 6 (54:55):
Great, and our last question right there.
Arthur Jones II (55:01):
Thank you. Arthur Jones II ABC News. Secretary Kennedy, you made a statement that said these procedures rob children of their futures. How much input did you get from parents and schools and those that are closest to the child?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (55:19):
Throughout President Trump's campaign, we were approached by thousands and thousands of people, parents and kids, people like Chloe. And so we heard a lot from the public. I think the most profound impact on the decisions we have today were taken after we reviewed the science, and we have a 300-page report, I urge you to read it. I don't think anybody can read that science without saying, "We made a huge mistake here." And this is a disgrace to the medical profession. It's a disgrace to the medical establishment that they let this go on for so long, based upon so little positive data and overwhelming data against these procedures.
Speaker 6 (56:16):
Thank you so much for being here.