US Laws Restricting Medical Care for Transgender Minors

Do US health care laws treat transgender minors differently than other minors?This Special Communication reviewed statutes restricting gender-affirming medical care in all US jurisdictions and found that all US laws restricting medical procedures that modify benign sexual anatomy in transgender minors apply regardless of the minor’s consent/assent, parental permission, or clinical best-interests judgments. The same laws allow parents and clinicians to pursue similar procedures when performed on intersex and other presumptively nontransgender minors, even absent the minor’s consent/assent.Such US laws appear to treat issues of pediatric consent/assent, parental authority, and clinical judgment differently for transgender compared with other minors, even in relation to similar procedures affecting sexual anatomy.

Corresponding Author: Hannah C. Wenger, MD, Division of General Internal Medicine, Penn State College of Medicine, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, 90 Hope Dr, A320, Hershey, PA 17033 (hwenger@pennstatehealth.psu.edu).

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