Feds Launch “Snitch Line” Targeting Trans Healthcare
The online portal encourages healthcare workers to report doctors, hospitals, and clinics providing gender-affirming care to trans youth.
In new guidance posted to its website, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that healthcare workers, clinic staff, and third parties could file complaints against medical providers thought to be providing people under age 19 with hormones, puberty blockers, and gender-affirming surgical procedures.
LGBTQ advocates are deriding the online portal as a “snitch line.”
The guidance is intended to align with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump prohibiting the provision of gender-affirming care to people under the age of 19 and barring federal funds from being spent on medical treatments meant to assist a person of any age in transitioning genders.
The guidance seeks to assuage the concerns of so-called “whistleblowers” of being prosecuted for violating the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which prohibits the disclosure of confidential medical information.
The online complaint form on the HHS website invites users to name doctors or identify hospitals and clinics that are engaging in the alleged “mutilation of children.” While the portal does not ask for confidential health information that would typically be protected under HIPAA, it does provide instructions on how to submit reports that may contain such information to other federal agencies.
Critics say the portal is an example of how the Trump administration is seeking to scare and intimidate providers in the hopes of getting them to stop treating transgender patients altogether.
The HHS guidance for whistleblowers comes on the heels of a letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services urging state Medicaid agencies not to spend Medicaid funds to cover the cost of gender-affirming care for minors, as reported by The Hill.
That letter claims that surgical and hormonal interventions to assist a person in transitioning lack evidence to support claims that they offer long-term benefits for transgender patients and asserts that gender-affirming care can cause long-term health complications and “irreparable harm.”
Adrian Shanker, a former HHS official under the Biden administration, told The Advocate that the intent behind both the “snitch line” portal and the letter are intended to “instill fear” among those who treat transgender patients.
“It’s two sides of the same coin because it’s diminished access to care — period,” he said. “If providers become fearful of providing the care, fewer providers will offer it.”
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