Published April 17, 2026
On April 17, 2026, EPPC Scholars Mary Rice Hasson, Rachel N. Morrison, and Eric Kniffin submitted a public comment to the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) ICD-10 Coordination and Maintenance Committee in support of a proposal to add medical diagnostic codes related to detransition and sex-rejecting interventions.
This proposal revises and builds on a similar September 2025 proposal to the Committee, which the scholars and others supported.
In this April 2026 comment, the scholars thanked the Committee and HHS for adding a new medical code specific to remission of gender identity disorder and gender dysphoria and for considering the revised proposed codes. The scholars also asked the Committee and HHS to consider additional inclusion terms for the codes that would help medicine better respond to the complicated needs of individuals who want to stop receiving sex-rejecting procedures and help their bodies heal from these procedures.
Their comment stressed the lack of good data on how many people have detransitioned and the difficulty these victims of gender ideology face in seeking medical care:
[T]he injuries and ongoing healthcare needs of those who underwent sex-rejecting procedures—and subsequently discontinued those procedures—are invisible to the medical system … There is no systematic way of tracking how many individuals fall into this category or of describing their specific medical needs. There is no recognized label for their condition or its characteristic injuries, symptoms, and outcomes. There are no protocols to guide physicians in ways to help these vulnerable patients reverse the damage done by de-masculinizing and de-feminizing interventions …
[Detransitioners] are seeking to recover their health and to alleviate suffering that is a direct result of a zealous, ideology-driven experiment, unsupported by reliable medical evidence. The Committee and HHS should, as a matter of justice, do what they can to help provide the structural framework, including appropriate medical codes, that will permit the healthcare system to respond effectively and systematically to their needs.
The scholars also pointed out that adopting medical codes, such as the ones proposed, “aligns with President Trump’s policy priorities to protect children from ‘chemical and surgical mutilation,’ combat gender ideology extremism, restore biological truth to the federal government, and Make America Health Again (MAHA).”
Other organizations also submitted comments in support of the proposed codes, including
Mary Rice Hasson, JD, is the Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where she co-founded and directs the Person and Identity Project, an initiative that promotes the truth of the human person and counters gender ideology.
