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Oklahoma Gov. Stitt signed SB3XX, cutting ARPA hospital funding tied to gender-affirming care for minors

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed Senate Bill 3XX on October 4, 2022, appropriating $39.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to the University Hospitals Authority while barring their use at any facility providing gender-transition medical treatment to patients under 18. Facing the funding cutoff, OU Health's Oklahoma Children's Hospital announced it would stop providing gender-affirming care to minors.

Jurisdiction
Oklahoma
Location
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Abuses documented

Actors

On October 4, 2022, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed Senate Bill 3XX, appropriating $39.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to the University Hospitals Authority for pediatric behavioral-health capacity while barring the Authority and University Hospitals Trust from spending any of that money at a facility that performs "gender reassignment medical treatment" — hormone therapy, puberty suppression, or surgical or medical gender-transition care — on patients under 18. The bill took effect immediately upon signature.

OU Health's Oklahoma Children's Hospital, which ran the Roy G. Biv program, the state's only pediatric gender-affirming care service, announced it would stop providing that care rather than risk losing the ARPA funds. Stitt's signing statement called the bill "the first step" toward a full statewide ban on gender-affirming care for minors, which the Legislature enacted the following year as SB613.

Why we recorded this

Government funding conditions can function as a backdoor ban on health care, denying services to patients based on their gender identity without an outright prohibition. By tying $39.4 million in COVID-relief hospital funding to a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, Oklahoma forced a public hospital to stop treating an entire category of patients rather than risk its budget. This uses the power of the purse to single out transgender youth for exclusion from care otherwise available to their peers.

Sources

  1. Governor Stitt Signs Bill to Prevent Gender Transition Services at OU Children's Hospital — Office of the Governor of Oklahoma primary accessed July 18, 2026
  2. SB3XX Bill Information (2021-22 2nd Extraordinary Session) — Oklahoma State Legislature primary accessed July 18, 2026
  3. Oklahoma passes law to withhold COVID relief funds from hospitals providing gender-affirming care to minors — JURIST secondary accessed July 18, 2026

See also