Milwaukee Democratic Lawmakers Object to Gender Surgery Changes at Children’s Wisconsin

Legislators Decry Pause of Gender Affirming Care for Minors

Two Milwaukee lawmakers are among the first to decry the reported changes for childrens’ gender surgeries at Children's Wisconsin.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on Friday that Children’s is “pausing new care” at its Gender Health Clinic.

However, Ryan Clancy, who is both a Milwaukee Democratic state representative and a Milwaukee County supervisor, said Children’s is promising to continue caring for current patients.

“It’s a relief that Children’s Wisconsin responded to public pressure and will continue providing gender affirming care to some patients, but it’s disappointing that a beloved institution rushed to obey Trump’s cruel, anti-trans, anti-science order in the first place. Children’s must extend this decision to new patients too if it hopes to fulfill its vision of making Wisconsin’s children the healthiest in the nation,” he said in a statement.

Democratic state Senator Chris Larson, who is also from Milwaukee, took to Twitter Friday morning to share the news.

“Children's Wisconsin is starting to deny care to Trans kids based on the President's illegal and discriminatory executive order,” Larson wrote. “Doctors - not politicians should decide what type of care is appropriate for their patients. @childrenswi should reverse course.”

Children’s Wisconsin did not make an official announcement about its plans for sex changes or hormone treatments for children.

A hospital spokesman told the Journal Sentinel that “something is happening.”

President Trump last week ordered that the United States “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.”

The White House added that “medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.”

Clancy said Wisconsin’s attorney general needs to step-in and protect Children’s Hospital and its gender care offerings.

“While I speak from direct experience on the importance of gender affirming care for trans and non-binary kids, Children’s Wisconsin shouldn’t need public shaming from affected families to do the right thing. We need clear guidance from Attorney General Josh Kaul laying out care providers’ ethical and legal obligations to trans and non-binary patients so this never happens again,” Clancy added.