President Trump signed a groundbreaking executive order Tuesday barring federal funds from being used for transgender treatments on minors, calling the practice a “stain on our Nation’s history.” The first-of-its-kind executive order labels research supporting such treatments “junk science” and orders the Department of Justice to draft proposed legislation that would allow families harmed by “chemical and surgical mutilation” to sue medical professionals.

Although the order could be challenged in court, it nevertheless indicates a major shift in federal policy on transgender medical procedures for minors. The U.S. Supreme Court in December heard a challenge to a Tennessee law that prohibits transgender treatments on children. The justices appeared poised to uphold the law, marking another significant conservative step on the issue.

Trump’s executive order is titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” It applies to individuals under 19.

“Across the country today, 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,” the order says. “This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.”

Countless children, the order says, “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.”

“Moreover, 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.”

The executive order states plainly: “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.”

As part of the directive, Trump is ordering the head of each federal department and agency to take steps to ensure that “institutions receiving Federal research or education grants end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.” He also is instructing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to publish a review of the existing literature on “best practices for promoting the health of children who assert gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion.”

The Department of Justice shall, in consultation with the Congress, draft legislation allowing the children and the parents of children “whose healthy body parts have been damaged by medical professionals practicing chemical and surgical mutilation” to sue medical professionals.

“The blatant harm done to children by chemical and surgical mutilation cloaks itself in medical necessity, spurred by guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which lacks scientific integrity,” the order says.

Department and agencies, the order says, “shall rescind or amend all policies that rely on WPATH guidance.”

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