Government records obtained by a conservative advocacy group indicate that Pennsylvania paid nearly $3 million for gender‑related medical services for minors and young adults between January and mid‑September 2025, even as the Trump administration has moved to restrict federal support for such care. The spending continues a sharp rise since 2015, with tens of millions of dollars in public funds going to thousands of patients, and has prompted Republican lawmakers to press for new limits.
Pennsylvania’s state health programs spent $2,925,736 on gender‑related medical services for minors and young adults between January 1 and September 18, 2025, according to state data obtained by the Pennsylvania Family Institute (PFI) through Right‑to‑Know requests and shared with The Daily Wire.
The 2025 figure covers spending through the state’s Medical Assistance system, including the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), fee‑for‑service claims, and paid physical and behavioral health encounters, The Daily Wire reported, citing the PFI data.
PFI and allied organizations have previously documented a rapid run‑up in such expenditures since the middle of the last decade. A 2023 analysis by PFI said that, from January 1, 2015, through July 28, 2023, Pennsylvania spent nearly $20 million in taxpayer funds on puberty‑blocking drugs, cross‑sex hormones and gender‑related surgeries for patients 18 and under, with annual spending rising from tens of thousands of dollars in 2015 to more than $5 million by 2022.
The PFI data cited by The Daily Wire indicate that this upward trend has continued. According to that reporting, Pennsylvania’s annual spending on gender‑related services for minors and young adults grew from roughly $74,000 in 2015 to more than $5 million by 2024, and now totals more than $31 million since 2015 for several thousand patients. The data shared with The Daily Wire describe patients in the 5‑to‑18 age range; the outlet reports that 6,229 patients in that bracket received services over the period, including more than 100 children between ages 6 and 12 in 2024.
CHIP spending on these services has also expanded sharply, according to the figures reported by The Daily Wire. CHIP funds directed to gender‑related care increased from just over $15,000 in 2015 to more than $1,114,367 in 2024, with more than $487,000 in CHIP dollars already paid out in the first nine months of 2025. CHIP is Pennsylvania’s insurance program for uninsured children and teenagers who are not eligible for Medicaid.
The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services told The Daily Wire that it is required to follow federal and state Medicaid rules and “covers services related to gender transition that otherwise fall within a beneficiary’s scope of covered Medicaid benefits, such as physician’s services, inpatient and outpatient hospital services, behavioral health services, and prescribed drugs when medically necessary.” The department said it evaluates coverage in line with applicable standards of care; PFI and The Daily Wire have previously noted that those standards draw on professional guidelines for gender‑affirming care.
The broader debate over youth gender care in Pennsylvania has also involved some of the state’s major medical centers. The Daily Wire reported that the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), whose gender program has been a focus of scrutiny from opponents of medical transition for minors, has gone to court to limit federal investigators’ access to certain patient‑related data in an ongoing U.S. Department of Justice inquiry.
In June 2025, Republican state senator Judy Ward, a registered nurse, introduced the “Do No Harm Act,” a bill that would prohibit the use of state funds for gender‑related surgeries, cross‑sex hormones and puberty‑blocking medications for minors. Speaking to The Daily Wire about the treatments covered by the bill, Ward said, “It’s just a horrible, horrible thing, and we’re doing it to children. It is child abuse [in] every sense of the word.” Supporters of gender‑affirming care, including major U.S. medical associations, dispute that characterization and say that, when provided under clinical guidelines, such care can be medically necessary and beneficial for some adolescents.
Ward and other critics have framed the 2025 spending as evidence that Pennsylvania is out of step with efforts by the Trump administration to curb federal involvement in youth gender‑related care. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January 2025 directing the federal government to stop funding or supporting gender‑transition procedures and medications for minors, though the full impact of that order on state‑run programs is still being tested in court.
According to The Daily Wire’s review of the PFI data, roughly $14 million in Pennsylvania public funds for gender‑related services for minors and young adults has been spent since Democratic governor Josh Shapiro took office in January 2023. Shapiro’s office did not respond to The Daily Wire’s questions about whether he would sign Ward’s bill if it reaches his desk.
Ward has argued that the spending figures underscore the need for greater public scrutiny of how state health dollars are being used and has urged colleagues to end taxpayer support for medical interventions that, in her view, exploit vulnerable young people rather than help them. Advocates of gender‑affirming care counter that restricting coverage would leave patients and families without evidence‑based treatment and could worsen mental‑health outcomes for transgender youth.
