President Donald Trump made another extraordinary claim about transgender health care Friday, telling supporters that hospitals across the country are now performing what he called “reverse surgery” on transgender patients because he ordered them to do so.
There is one rather significant problem with that statement: there is no evidence it is true.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Trump declared, “In fact, hospitals now are doing reverse surgery at my order,” before adding, “Nobody ever heard about it.”
Nobody may have heard about it because no presidential order requiring hospitals to perform “reverse surgery” exists.
What Trump Actually Ordered
Trump has issued multiple executive actions targeting gender-affirming health care since returning to office. His January 2025 executive order sought to restrict federal support for puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries for people under 19. But it did not order doctors to surgically reverse anyone’s transition.
The administration has also pursued hospitals providing transgender health care.
That may be where Trump’s claim became scrambled.
Texas Children’s Hospital reached a settlement with state and federal officials in May that included creating a clinic providing services to young people who previously received gender-affirming treatment and later wanted to detransition. Reuters reported that the hospital said the clinic would formalize multidisciplinary services it already provided.
The Cleveland Clinic later agreed to provide $2 million in services for people who received gender-affirming medical care before age 19 and subsequently sought detransition-related treatment.
Neither agreement orders patients to undergo surgery. Nor did Trump order hospitals nationwide to begin reversing transitions.
Another False Transgender Health Claim
The statement fits an established pattern of Trump making dramatic claims about transgender medical care that bear little resemblance to how that care actually works.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed children were being sent to school and returning home after gender-affirming surgery. His own campaign was unable to provide an example of a school secretly sending a child for such surgery.
Available data also contradicts the broader political image of children routinely undergoing transition-related operations. A study examining insurance claims covering nearly 23 million minors found no gender-affirming surgeries among transgender children 12 and younger. Among the 85 procedures identified in minors overall, 82 were chest-related.
Trump’s latest version takes the misinformation in a new direction. Instead of claiming children are routinely being rushed into operating rooms, he is now claiming hospitals are rushing them back in to undo procedures at his command.
Neither claim reflects the evidence.
What does exist is an administration aggressively using federal policy, funding restrictions, and investigations to reshape transgender health care.
What does not exist is a presidential order commanding America’s surgeons to start performing “reverse surgery.”
