US President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on a chaotic platform that included promises to roll back access to gender-affirming care for transgender individuals. As with many of Trump’s proposed plans, exact details for what this would entail are difficult to track. Trump has especially focused on banning any kind of gender-affirming care for transgender youth. However, banning gender-affirming care at the federal level would likely result in a decrease in access to this kind of care across the country, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Gender-affirming care includes a wide variety of treatments, including hormone therapies and several different kinds of surgeries. Most often, these treatments are accessed by transgender individuals. However, a total ban on these kinds of therapies will also impact other patients. Young people may be prescribed these hormone therapies to treat precocious puberty, acne vulgaris, and menstrual pain. In adults, hormone therapies are used to treat menopausal symptoms in women and can also be used to treat fertility problems.

David Beauchamp, Medical Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “As the ban would involve a halt on federal funding for any procedures and possible legal action against existing providers, if Trump does ban gender-affirming care, the lack of funding and support for these treatments could cause a significant decrease in innovation for medical devices within the space in the US, as a blanket ban on these procedures would make it legally risky for companies to try to market new medical devices.”

Due to the very small percentage of the American population that requires gender-affirming care, it is unlikely that any major markets tracked by GlobalData will be affected by these new policies. However, with the ambiguousness of Trump’s current plans, it is difficult to determine if a ban on gender-affirming care at the federal level will spill over into other areas.

Beauchamp concludes: “It remains to be seen what the second Trump administration will do to limit gender-affirming care. A federal ban will likely be challenged in courts by Democratic states, which would allow for this care to continue in certain areas of the country. Without knowing more about the Trump administration’s proposed plans, it remains difficult to predict what effect this will have on the medical device market.”