This executive order represents a significant policy shift in how the federal government approaches gender-affirming care for minors. It directs multiple agencies—including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of Defense (DOD)—to restrict access to puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and gender-related surgeries for children by eliminating federal funding, changing insurance coverage, and increasing legal scrutiny of medical providers.

Executive Order 13988 was released under the presidency of Donald Trump on January 20, 2025, titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. It lays out a framework prioritizing a rigid, chromosomal definition of sex, framing it as fixed and binary. This approach dismisses gender entirely, portraying it as a threat to sex assigned at birth—and, more radically, rejecting the idea that sex is "assigned" at birth at all, asserting instead that it is determined at conception.