Large Illinois Health System Ends 'Gender-Affirming Care' Services

Trump’s executive order declared that there are only two sexes and that federal funding and research grants for medical institutions could be withheld.

Andrew Griffin

Published: 9/3/2025, 5:50:39 PM EDT

Large Illinois Health System Ends 'Gender-Affirming Care' Services — Detransition advocates protest outside of the annual Pediatric Endocrine Society conference held in San Diego, Calif., on May 6, 2023. (John Fredicks/The Epoch Times)

This past week, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Advocate Health, which operates hospitals and health systems in six states—including Illinois—announced it would no longer provide “gender-affirming care” for patients under the age of 19.

Advocate Health is the latest hospital system to stop offering transition services to minors. This decision comes after the White House decreed that “chemical and surgical mutilation” of minors would no longer be acceptable or federally funded.

Shortly after his inauguration last January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order stating that the U.S. 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.”

In a media release shared in the Chicago Sun-Times, Advocate Health stated that the company recognizes “that this is a deeply complex issue, and this decision was made after a multi-disciplinary team spent numerous hours carefully considering the options and outcomes.”

Continuing, the statement said: “This new policy allows our hospitals, clinics and pharmacies to continue caring for all patients’ health needs in the changing federal environment.”

One of the largest health care providers in the Land of Lincoln, Advocate Health operates 11 hospitals and 200 other health care centers in the populous state.

Trump’s executive order, along with an additional one addressing the same issue, declared that there are only two sexes—“male and female”—and that federal funding and research grants for medical institutions like Advocate would be withheld if they offered such procedures to minors.

NTD reached out to Advocate Health for more information on their corporate decision, but did not hear back as of press time.

And while the state of Illinois has not restricted access to "gender-affirming care" across the board, more hospitals and health care providers are ending the service primarily due to Trump’s executive orders.

One such hospital, Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, announced in July that it was pausing providing "gender-affirming care" to minor patients.

Rush said in a press statement that clinicians agreed with management to no longer offer services for transitioning, something Rush has not performed since 2023, although similar procedures for those over the age of 18 are not affected by the decision.

In June, in a split ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law that restricted access to "gender-affirming care" for those 18 and younger. The High Court ruled that Tennessee’s law does not violate the 14^th Amendment’s equal protection clause.