Hello everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us.

We're going to talk health care today, specifically how some of the policy changes coming out of the Trump administration are affecting health care for trans kids.

Early on in his second term, the president signed an executive order to end gender-affirming care for trans youth.

And more recently, in December, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed a new rule

that would ban hospitals from receiving Medicaid and Medicare funding if they offer gender affirming care for minors.

My colleague Samantha Fields has been reporting on how this is affecting health care providers

across the country. Sam, welcome back to Make Me Smart. It's great to be here.

So this language, gender affirming care for minors, what exactly does that mean?

So it can mean a lot of things, but when we're talking about medical care and the kind of care

that the Trump administration is trying to ban, it means care that helps a transgender

kid or teenager feel like their body aligns with their gender identity. So for a younger kid who

maybe is nearing puberty, that might include

something called puberty blockers, which is basically a drug that delays puberty. And for older

teenagers, it might include hormones that align with their gender identity. So say someone was

assigned female at birth, but identifies as male, they might start taking testosterone.

And in some cases, gender

affirming care can include surgery, but it's really not that common for people under 18.

Okay, so this new rule was proposed in December that would threaten funding for hospitals that

provide this care. The rule's not yet in effect, but can you lay out what

you found in your reporting about what hospitals are already doing as it pertains to this rule?

Yeah, so as you said, HHS in December proposed some new rules, including banning hospitals

from receiving any Medicare or Medicaid

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