The Trump administration\u2019s policies built on an increasingly restrictive environment for trans care. In the last few years, 27 states have enacted measures<\/a> prohibiting access to certain transition-related treatments for minors, according to Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Families who could afford it began traveling to the remaining states where care remained legal.<\/p>\n But in July, the federal government began investigating providers<\/a> across the country, resulting in more than 20 hospitals<\/a> \u2014 including those in liberal cities such as Los Angeles and Boston \u2014 rolling back or ending their gender-affirming care programs for minors and some young adults. <\/p>\n The environment has led some trans adults and families with trans children, like the Gonzales\u2019, to leave the country<\/a>. Rachel Gonzales\u2019 three children are fifth-generation Texans, and she has been fighting anti-trans legislation in the state since her trans daughter, Libby, was 6 years old. For years, she has said<\/a> they had no plans to leave the state. But due to the federal government\u2019s actions to restrict access to transition care, she and her husband moved Libby, who is now 15, and their other two children out of the United States to a country Gonzales declined to disclose.<\/p>\n \u201cLiving in Texas, we became targets of politicians who have boldly rejected the consensus of medical experts and decided that they know better than Libby, my husband and I, and our team of physicians and have opted to use us as their political targets, instead of allowing us the parental rights that they so claim to advocate for,\u201d Gonzales said during the press briefing held by the Human Rights Campaign.<\/p>\n Just a day before the HHS announcement, the House passed a bill<\/a> that would charge doctors with a felony<\/a> punishable by up to 10 years in prison if they provide gender-affirming care for minors. The legislation, introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R.-Ga., is expected to die in the Senate but marks the harshest federal penalty for doctors providing transition-related care to minors ever passed by the House. <\/p>\n Greene called the bill\u2019s passage \u201ca win for children all over America,\u201d in a post on X<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n![\"Image:](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251218-Gonzales-family-gk-adf5c9.jpg\")
Frank and Rachel Gonzales with their children: Libby, 15, Cecilia, 12, and Henry, 10.Courtesy Rachel Gonzales<\/p>\n