Wielding Power to Protect the Vulnerable

The age of widespread transgender surgeries for minors appears to be coming to an end. Not only is individual tolerance lowering for such behaviors, but pressure from the top is being exerted on the ideologues who caused harm.

Interestingly, the key momentum for much of this did not come through cultural debate, but rather through an administration that was willing to use pre-existing laws to protect the vulnerable. In January 2025, President Trump issued the executive order "Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation," which aimed to use the power of the federal government to stop these practices via insurance rules, grant denials, medicaid changes, and direct pressure by the Department of Justice.

In April of that year, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memorandum titled “Preventing the Mutilation of American Children,” directing the Department of Justice to seek out and prosecute those who were violating federal law in the drugging and mutilating of children. Since then, major hospitals have reached settlements with the DOJ, putting an end to the butchery and in some cases even funding healthcare for the victims:

• NYU Langone Hospitals: Agreed to pay $8.5 million and stop trying to transition minors.

• University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC): Agreed to pay $950,000 and cease such pediatric procedures.

• Mount Sinai Health System: Agreed to cease these interventions and dedicate $2 million for care related to adverse outcomes.

• Cleveland Clinic Foundation: Reached an agreement committing to end these interventions and fund $2 million in care for those previously affected.

• Connecticut Children’s Medical Center: Agreed to halt the procedures and dedicate $500,000 for patient care support.

• Texas Children’s Hospital: Reached a resolution involving the establishment of a detransition clinic framework.

Those who are prone to cynicism will reflexively pronounce that such changes are only as temporary as an administration, but that might not be so. The legal climate has now become such that it is not merely institutions, but individual doctors and nurses who fear the penalties of their decisions.

For an example of this in action, we can look to Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, Colorado. The hospital stopped prescribing puberty blockers in January 2026, citing government pressure. Four families sued, alleging that they were being discriminated against in a way that was prohibited under Colorado law. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled 5–2 that the hospital’s suspension likely violated state anti-discrimination law and ordered the hospital to resume providing puberty blockers and hormones to minors. That is when the case became interesting.

On June 16th, 2026, the hospital announced that it had technically resumed so-called “gender-affirming care,” but that no doctors were willing to write such prescriptions because they were afraid of violating federal law. Hence, the hospital was now operating within the confines of the legal framework, allowing such drugs to be prescribed but without having a single doctor who was willing to place himself at personal risk by doing so. Herein we come to the crux of the issue.

We have reached a moment in which those in positions of power are finally doing the right thing, because of fear of doing otherwise. This dark era of carnage has shown us that large swaths of doctors were not committed to performing medicine as such, which is to say, of being healers. Instead, they were willing to engage in such novel experimentation on children for the sake of either financial gain or (perhaps worse) notoriety in their field.

While some might find this observation repugnant, we saw something similar during the covid era, when so few in the medical field were willing to speak against the grain. The family doctor who is not attached to a large conglomerate and feels free to act according to his own judgment is largely a thing of the past.

Given this reality, we find ourselves in a situation where both of these factors are in play:

1. Medical personnel are no longer lionized as a heroic class. This began to change within public consciousness during the COVID era (after an initial surge of trust), and plummeted further with the transgender scandals.

2. Those who otherwise would rather follow the status quo will nevertheless be compelled to do what is right out of fear of consequence.

The latter point might remind us of Nietzsche’s claim that most morality is cowardice rather than goodness. That certainly is not what we aim for, nor is it the basis of a Christian society, but it is something.

While many fought in the culture wars, teenagers who spent too much time on Instagram were getting themselves permanently sterilized by doctors who told them (falsely) that they could stop anytime without long-term consequence.

Doctors are now being sued and losing court battles for their individual roles in this diabolical fad. A New York jury awarded $2 million to Fox Varian, who underwent a double mastectomy at sixteen and later sued her psychologist, Dr. Kenneth Einhorn, and her plastic surgeon, Dr. Simon Chin. Payouts like that will mean that malpractice insurance will soon be unaffordable for those who wish to practice this experimentation.

In other words, in tangible ways, the battle is being won. Those who fought most successfully used systems of power to achieve such goods. They did not assent to the libertarian claim that conservatives must argue in the public sphere ad infinitum and never use government or law. Instead, protection of children was a priority, and cultural tolerance of this spectacle decreased thereafter. It is a case of leaders being willing to lead.

Those who abuse, sterilize, and mutilate children should be afraid of legal consequences. In any just society, they would rightly be held accountable for their damage. As we reflect on a saga that left so many children with irreversible damage, we ought to use the opportunity to reflect on the variety of people and institutions that played a role. The medical system practiced the direct barbarism, but the legal system facilitated the removal of children taken from their families, academia expelled students and faculty for using biologically correct pronouns, and the entertainment system engaged in a campaign of desensitization and normalization.

The apprehension by those on the right regarding the use of power has merely led to a ceding of institutions and a growing body count. Methods that fail to protect children are not worth engaging with. There is nothing wrong with using legal systems and hierarchies to bring about good. That is what happened here, and truthfully, it is the way positive changes were usually made throughout most of human history.