President Trump on Tuesday signed a sweeping executive order that bans federal funding and promotion of surgeries and treatments aimed at “transitioning” patients under the age of 19 to a gender other than their birth sex.

“Across the country today,” the order states, “medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.”

The order, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” says the federal government “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”

The move bars any federal government entity from paying for or providing research or grants to institutions that perform such procedures on minors. The order notes that many such young people “soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding.”  

“Moreover,” the order adds, “these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.”

Trump’s signing of the order is a promise kept to many of his voters, who have watched European nations pause or urge caution on such treatments while the U.S. medical establishment has continued acquiescing to pressure from LGBTQ activist groups.

The president posted on social media: “Today, it was my great honor to sign an Executive Order banning the chemical castration and medical mutilation of innocent children in the United States of America. Our Nation will no longer fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support so-called ‘gender affirming care,’ which has already ruined far too many precious lives.”

The response from evangelicals was clearly positive.

“Thank you @POTUS for protecting children,” wrote Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, a Baptist minister, on X. “This change will allow kids to be kids and not worry about an irreversible future.”

Daniel Darling, director of The Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, posted, “Common sense. Thank you, President Trump.”

Also, Chloe Cole, who underwent a double mastectomy at 17 and is now an activist opposed to such treatments, posted on X: “The Trump Executive Order to Protect Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation is a huge step forward for the fight against gender ideology.”

Trump’s executive order came four days after he dismissed federal charges against a surgeon, Dr. Eithan Haim, whom the Biden administration prosecuted after he blew the whistle on alleged illegal gender-transitioning treatments on minors at the nation’s largest pediatric hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

Federal officials charged Haim with violating federal patient privacy laws in disclosing the hospital’s practices to a reporter, though Haim and his attorneys maintained that he carefully redacted all personal information from medical records and documents. He was facing potential prison time.

The executive order also follows a decision last year in the U.K. banning gender-transitioning treatments for minors through its National Health System. That change came on the heels of a government-commissioned report, called the Cass Review, that found “very substantial risks and very narrow benefits” in such protocols for minors.

Georgiy Datsenko / Alamy Stock Photo