New Jersey governor signs shield law protecting gender-affirming care access

New Mexico’s Health Care Authority will continue covering gender-affirming care for minors after a federal rule ending Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program support for such care takes effect on 13 October, a state spokesperson said.

“Health Care Authority is planning to continue covering these services using state funds,” Timothy Fowler, a state Health Care Authority spokesperson, wrote in an email to the Santa Fe New Mexican.

The Trump administration finalized the rule on 13 August. The regulation ends federal Medicaid and CHIP funding for gender-affirming care — services that include puberty blockers, hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, speech therapy, body hair removal and counseling, according to the Guardian’s reporting. Major medical organizations support the care as medically necessary and lifesaving, the Guardian reported.

The Guardian reported that New Mexico has become a haven for families seeking gender-affirming care, pointing to the state legislature’s passage of the Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care Freedom Act in 2023 and a growing number of families relocating to New Mexico as protections for transgender youth disappeared in neighboring states.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has framed the state’s role through its Health Care Affordability Fund, a vehicle the state created in 2021. “We created the Health Care Affordability Fund for moments like this – when Washington fails to protect working families and the most vulnerable among us,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement earlier this year when New Mexico announced it would cover the cost of expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits for residents who purchase health insurance on the state marketplace.

A July news analysis found that New Mexico was the only state where Affordable Care Act marketplace enrollment increased after federal subsidies expired at the end of 2025, according to the Guardian.

New Mexico has the second-highest percentage of residents enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP among U.S. states, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, with 41.4% of the population covered by the two programs. KFF reported that 61% of the state’s children are insured through Medicaid or CHIP.

The UCLA Williams Institute estimates that 4,800 transgender teens between the ages of 13 and 17 live in New Mexico.

On Thursday, New Jersey announced that it would protect access to gender-affirming care through a shield law signed by Governor Mikie Sherrill, according to the Guardian. The two state-level announcements leave residents of those states with continued access to gender-affirming care that the federal rule will no longer fund through Medicaid or CHIP.