Attorney General Tong Leads Coalition Opposing Rules Preventing Access to Transgender Healthcare for Youth

Press Releases

02/18/2026

Attorney General Tong Leads Coalition Opposing Rules Preventing Access to Transgender Healthcare for Youth

(Hartford, CT) – Attorney General William Tong today co-led a coalition of 20 attorneys general submitting comment letters opposing two proposed rules by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that would prevent hospitals and medical providers from providing, and youth from receiving, essential transgender healthcare by threatening to withhold funds through the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

“These are extreme measures rooted in a hate-filled political agenda that would decimate our healthcare system. HHS and CMS are displacing legitimate medical expertise and parental choice with MAGA ideology and debunked fake pseudoscience. We’re fighting on every front to protect doctors and families and access to lifesaving healthcare,” said Attorney General Tong.

In December 2025, CMS proposed two rules that, if implemented, would bar hospitals from providing medically necessary transgender healthcare to youth by withholding Medicaid and Medicare funds to any hospitals that continue to provide such care and prohibiting state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) plans from using federal funding for medically necessary transgender youth healthcare.

The proposed Medicaid reimbursement rule would deprive states of their congressionally authorized role as Medicaid administrators and the proposed hospital conditions of participation rule would strip public and private hospitals in Connecticut of vital Medicare and Medicaid hospital funding for all healthcare, solely because a hospital offers some individuals transgender healthcare. Attorney General Tong and the coalition explain CMS and the federal government lack the power to deprive states of their longstanding duty to regulate the practice of medicine in ways that ensure access to medically necessary healthcare for the safety and well-being of their residents.

Attorney General Tong and the coalition assert in their comment letters that the proposed rules intrude on the states’ rights to regulate medicine within their borders, violate the Spending Clause and Equal Protection Clause, and contradict various statutes including the Social Security Act, the Affordable Care Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and vital nondiscrimination laws. The proposed rules further reflect HHS’s decision to discriminate against transgender youth despite contrary medical and scientific evidence, as shown by the agency’s failure to faithfully engage in the rulemaking process, including its lack of required regulatory impact and flexibility analyses.

For example, the letters explain that CMS attempts to support the rules by referencing its own commissioned HHS report, without addressing medical and scientific evidence unfavorable to its position. However, the HHS report has been discredited as methodologically flawed because it was anonymously published without peer review and issued at the direction of the president to support his goal of ending transgender health care. Additionally, the proposed rules will bear significant costs to transgender youth, their families and their healthcare providers, which HHS does not account for.

Joining Attorney General Tong in sending both these letters are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Today’s comment letters follow Attorney General Tong’s previous efforts to combat the Administration’s attempts to eradicate transgender healthcare and target providers, including a lawsuit filed in December challenging an HHS declaration that falsely claimed certain forms of transgender healthcare are “unsafe and ineffective” and threatens to punish any doctors, hospitals, and clinics that continue to provide it with exclusion from the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, and a lawsuit filed in August challenging the DOJ’s unlawful attempts to threaten healthcare providers with criminal and civil investigations. Those lawsuits remain pending.

Assistant Attorneys General Alma Nunley and Emily Gait, Special Counsels for Reproductive Rights and Janelle Medeiros, Special Counsel for Civil Rights are assisting the Attorney General in this matter.

Twitter: @AGWilliamTong

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Media Contact:

Elizabeth Benton
elizabeth.benton@ct.gov

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