Largest transgender care ends at Children’s Hospital L.A., marks nationwide shift

Children's Hospital Los Angeles has officially closed its Center for Transyouth Health and Development, joining several other such facilities in the U.S. in shuttering such transgender youth programs under the Trump administration. 

Children's was one of the largest and oldest pediatric gender clinics in the United States, according to the LA Times. 

The closure follows the Justice Department investigating pediatric specialists for such alleged crimes as billing fraud and deceptive trade practices. And federal health agencies have vowed to withhold funding from institutions that continue to provide such care – amid backlash about such issues as the danger of drugs known as puberty blockers and gender-transition surgeries being gender mutilation.

President Trump signed an executive order in January that called the procedures “mutilation” saying they "must end."

More recently, the department has begun subpoenaing patient medical records from more than 20 doctors and clinics, the newspaper also reports.

“Medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology will be held accountable by this Department of Justice,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in announcing the move.

In recent days, Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., and Rush Medical Center, in Chicago, have closed similar programs.