TRANS ENTRENCHMENT: 323 Hospitals, Health Care Facilities Still Score 100 on Supporting ‘Gender-Affirming Care’

Transgender “medicine” has suffered tremendous setbacks in the last two years, but it remains entrenched in much of America’s medical establishment.

Although hundreds of health care facilities have distanced themselves from the transgender orthodoxy demanded by the LGBTQ+ activist group the Human Rights Campaign, hundreds of others remain committed to it.

HRC ranks health care facilities on a “Healthcare Equality Index” according to several criteria, including their promotion of transgender orthodoxy and their coverage of experimental transgender medical interventions euphemistically described as “gender-affirming care.”

“Declining participation in the HRC health care equality index proves our fight against identity politics in medicine is working and we must keep our foot on the gas,” Dr. Kurt Miceli, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer at Do No Harm, told The Daily Signal.

The Numbers

In 2024, 1,056 health care facilities across the country took part in the HRC survey, and 384 of them received a 100% perfect score (called “leaders”), while 462 received a score between 80% and 95% (called “high performers”).

This year, only 741 took part in the survey, 323 scored 100%, and 343 achieved the status of “high performers.” This represents about a 30% drop in participation, a 15% drop in “leaders,” and a 26% drop in “high performers.”

The survey considers four major criteria for scoring: non-discrimination and staff training (35 points), patient services and support (30 points), employee benefits and policies (20 points), and patient and community engagement (10 points). It also considers “responsible citizenship,” a criterion on which HRC can deduct either 5 or 25 points, depending on whether the health care provider has committed “major offenses to the LGBTQ+.”

The criteria require “baseline” coverage for “gender diverse employees” including “hormone replacement therapies,” “puberty blockers for youth,” and “coverage for reconstructive surgical procedures related to gender affirming surgery.” This accounts for 5 points, and entities cannot achieve a perfect score without it.

Other criteria encourage hospitals and other entities to “have an LGBTQ+ specific clinic,” “offer gender-transition related medical and mental health care,” “have a multidisciplinary gender affirming clinic for adults and/or youth,” provide coverage for “gender affirming care above baseline requirements for coverage,” and more.

HRC has been bleeding allies recently. While 377 of the Fortune 500 companies participated in a similar survey for businesses in 2025, the number dropped to 131 this year.

The Human Rights Campaign did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

‘Gender-Affirming Care’

While activists claim that teens who suffer from gender dysphoria—the painful and persistent condition of identifying with the gender opposite one’s sex—need experimental medical interventions to prevent suicide, the Department of Health and Human Services concluded there is little evidence for positive impacts from such “treatments” for minors.

Studies have suggested these interventions cause harm, from increased cancer risks to higher risk of suicidal thoughts.

A jury awarded a detransitioner $2 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit in February, and psychiatrists reportedly agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle another detransitioner’s medical malpractice claim last month.

Texas Children’s Hospital announced last month that it would close its gender clinic and open the first detransition clinic.

“HHS continues to fight to protect America’s children from irreversible harm outlined in the department’s peer-reviewed report,” HHS Press Secretary Emily Hilliard told the Daily Signal in a statement Monday. “These detrimental procedures do not meet professionally recognized standards of health care, and practitioners who perform sex-rejecting procedures on minors would be deemed out of compliance with those standards.”

‘Deeper Work Lies Ahead’

“Both at the state and federal level, protections are being put in place to stop pediatric sex changes and end DEI in taxpayer funded programs and institutions,” Dr. Miceli, the Do No Harm leader, told the Daily Signal. “Those efforts are a response to years of work by our organization, other coalition members, and countless medical professionals exposing the harms of identity politics.”

“However, many hospitals and medical organization continue to hide behind a nonexistent medical consensus pushed by the American Medical Association, Endocrine Society, American Academy of Pediatrics and others that ignore evidence revealing that dangers of child sex changes,” he added. “The fight is far from over.”

Genspect, a group of medical professionals, transgender people, detransitioners (those who formerly identified as transgender), and parents who advocate against gender medicalization, celebrated the move against HRC but noted that it will not be easy to uproot transgender orthodoxy from the medical community.

“I would hesitate to describe this as a wholesale retreat,” Genspect Director Stella O’Malley told the Daily Signal.

“The claims once presented as settled science are now being subjected to the kind of scrutiny that should always have existed,” she explained.

“The truth is that there is no reliable, replicable evidence base to support medical transition,” O’Malley added. “These interventions might be intensely desired but they do not offer good long-term outcomes.”

O’Malley warned that “this issue cannot be solved simply by shutting down a few clinics,” however. “Medical pathways can migrate online or across borders and trans tourism and [do-it-yourself] hormones are a major growth industry. What ultimately matters is whether the general public comes to a deeper understanding of the trans phenomenon.”

“There has been progress, but the deeper work lies ahead,” she urged. “Medicine changes slowly.”