Experts Warn Trump Officials Misrepresent Science of Sex and Gender
As health systems across the United States terminate gender-affirming care programs in response to a crackdown from the Trump administration, scientists and advocates are raising alarms that the fundamental science of sex and gender is being dangerously misrepresented. This distortion, they argue, could have severe repercussions for the healthcare of all Americans, extending beyond transgender individuals to affect areas like abortion access and vaccine policies.
Scientific Misinformation in Policy Making
Jey McCreight, founder of Beyond X&Y and a holder of a doctoral degree in human genomics, stated that Trump officials "don’t actually understand the science at all." McCreight, who uses they/them pronouns, emphasized that using misinformation to restrict healthcare access sets a dangerous precedent for all patients. "These attacks are fundamentally coming from a broader attempt to dismantle science and expertise and truth," they added.
Jess McLaughlin, an assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Alaska Anchorage, also using they/them pronouns, highlighted how oversimplified biological concepts are being weaponized. "These oversimplified understandings of the biology of sex are being used to back up transgender legislation and federal policy," McLaughlin said. "The science is being misrepresented in such a way to hurt people."
Federal Crackdown on Gender-Affirming Care
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is finalizing a new rule that would block Medicaid and Medicare payments to health systems providing gender-affirming care to patients under 18, including puberty blockers and hormones. The public comment period for this policy concluded recently, with HHS also planning to bar federal programs like Medicaid and CHIP from covering such care.
Consequently, major clinics such as Mount Sinai, NYU Langone, Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma, and University of Utah Health have ended their pediatric gender-affirming care programs. This move severely limits access to appropriate care for transgender children nationwide. Additionally, care for adults is under threat, with the Trump administration announcing it will cease offering gender-affirming healthcare to transgender individuals in correctional facilities, forcing hormone tapering and restricting gender-aligned items.
Broader Implications for Healthcare
Scientists warn that this crackdown, based on distorted science, could pave the way for restricting other forms of care, such as abortion and vaccines, which have also faced scrutiny from the Trump administration. McCreight noted, "The administration is not just attacking trans people, it’s attacking women’s rights, bodily autonomy around abortion, disabled people, autistic people. It’s a larger movement to try to make people conform to what’s seen as an ideal, but that ideal really comes from white Christian nationalism, not scientific reality."
The HHS order controversially refers to gender-affirming care as "sex-rejecting procedures," a term originating from a conservative religious group in April 2025. McLaughlin criticized this rhetoric, stating it implies "a very strict set of characteristics that don’t change," which contradicts biological reality. The World Health Organization cautions against conflating gender with sex, the latter defined by physical features like chromosomes and anatomy.
Flawed Definitions and Biological Complexity
The administration has faced challenges in defining sex to justify restrictions. An executive order from Trump’s second term claimed biological sex is "immutable," determined by reproductive cells at conception. However, this is flawed, as fertilized eggs are single-celled and cannot have separate reproductive cells initially. The order also ignored intersex people, who have natural variations in chromosomes and anatomy.
McLaughlin pointed out the confusion: "What on earth are we even talking about with 'sex'? Do we mean chromosomes? Because that doesn’t often match. Most people actually have no idea what their sex chromosomes are." While XX and XY are common, variations like XX males, XY females, and XXY exist, highlighting that biology does not operate in simple binaries. McCreight added, "People have way more genetic variation than you would expect."
Impact on Patients and Healthcare Providers
Misconceptions about biology affect everyone, not just transgender individuals. For instance, cisgender men in the Veterans Affairs system have reported difficulties accessing breast cancer treatment due to new HHS rules. Healthcare providers may also fall prey to misinformation, leading to ineffective or harmful care for transgender patients. McLaughlin described "trans broken arm syndrome," where unrelated medical issues are wrongly attributed to a patient’s gender identity.
During the HHS announcement, Dr. Mehmet Oz mentioned phalloplasty for trans youth, but McCreight found no evidence of patients under 18 undergoing this procedure. They noted that most breast surgeries occur among cisgender teens, yet for transgender teens, such care can be lifesaving. Removing it "will result in trans kids at the very least being more stressed and having more mental illness, but at worst, possibly dying," McCreight warned.
Future Threats and Political Agenda
The Trump administration is considering new restrictions on abortion medications, delaying action until after midterm elections. McCreight urged caution: "Even cis people should be afraid – what does this mean for their healthcare when you have politicians who don’t understand science that are regulating these sorts of things?" They added that Republicans are "dismantling scientific research as a whole," aiming to destroy expertise and propagate propaganda, as seen with attacks on vaccines.
This systematic misrepresentation of science threatens to undermine public health and individual rights, with experts calling for a return to evidence-based policymaking to protect all Americans.
