TUCSON — On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order cutting federal funding for gender-affirming care—including hormone therapies, puberty blockers, and surgery—for anyone under 19.
Arizona law currently bans gender reassignment surgery for anyone under 18 and Arizona's Medicaid program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), does not cover gender reassignment surgeries.
However, the change could affect adults who use AHCCCS to pay for gender affirming care services like hormone therapy, voice and communication therapy and gender dysphoria counseling.
“Restricting that for a year causes an extra year of distress, another year of anxiety, another year of trying to hide myself, or being worried about what people are going to think about me or say about me,” said Eli Rahamim, a University of Arizona graduate and one of the first transgender members of his queer fraternity on campus.
Rahamim began hormone replacement therapy at 14, hoping to undergo "top surgery"—a procedure that removes breast tissue—before starting college.
“I couldn’t do that yet, since I was 17, before starting college,” Rahamim explained. “You had to be 18.”
For Rahamim, the journey to gender-affirming care was about more than physical changes. It was about his mental health.
“There is a biological cause that makes your brain feel a certain way, and the treatment is hormones—it’s gender-affirming care,” Rahamim said. “It basically cured my depression.”
Rahamim said he hasn't found it to be very common for minors to undergo gender reassignment surgery, but those who do get it "are the people that really desperately need it—that are so severely affected that they need that surgery at that age."
In college, Rahamim found a community with others who share similar experiences, such as Andres B. and Adrien A., who chose not to disclose their last names.
Andres said he’s worried about how the executive order could affect transgender youth from low-income backgrounds.
“It’s going to be affecting people who are using Medicare or other programs such as those, so it would be affecting youth from more marginalized communities, like low-income youth,” Andres said. “So, I think there are additional barriers being created, and this is going to create further harm for children rather than actually protecting them.”
Trump’s executive order states: “These vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.”
For Adrien, who grew up in Arizona and didn’t realize he was transgender until he was around 14 or 15, the executive order serves as a reminder of his own struggles.
“I had to go through a very long waiting period in order to get the help I needed,” Adrien said. “It was a very, very tough time, and it was also tough on the people who love me. I had no choice because the healthcare options that should have been available to kids like me were not available.”
He said the experience took a toll on his mental health during his teenage years.
“Those are years I wish I could go back to and reclaim, but I can't now, and thankfully, now that I'm not a minor anymore, I've been able to access the healthcare that I needed,” Adrien said.
Trump’s executive order directs the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to take “appropriate actions to end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children” and review the terms of insurance coverage under programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act to ensure they are not funding gender-affirming treatments for anyone under 19.
“When I was 15 and I was being faced with the prospect of having to wait another three years to get the healthcare I needed, I mean, that's just the most crushing thing,” Adrien said. “If I had to go back and do that now and make it four years, that's just—it’s unimaginable.”
Trump’s executive order states: “It is the policy of the United States that it 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 order also warns of long-term effects, saying: “Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding.”
For Rahamim, his decision to pursue hormone therapy as a minor involved extensive therapy sessions to explore all available options.
“The process that I went through when I started hormones, I had to go through multiple sessions of therapy where they tried to figure out what exactly I wanted, what my goals were, and provided me with different options to see if hormones were actually the best option for me,” Rahamim said.
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Maria Staubs joined KGUN 9 as a multimedia journalist and producer in July of 2024. Her passion for writing and storytelling stems from anchoring her middle school’s news show and editing her high school’s yearbook. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and mass communication with a minor in film and media production, as well as a master's degree in mass communication. You can email Maria at maria.staubs@kgun9.com or reach out to her on X/Twitter or Instagram.
