Wyoming enacted a 2026 budget footnote barring public funds, including Medicaid, from gender-affirming care

On March 9, 2026, Wyoming enacted Senate File 0001, its 2026 biennial general-government appropriations act, enrolled as Enrolled Act No. 27. Gov. Mark Gordon signed the budget after using his line-item veto power to strike roughly two dozen other items and footnotes, most of them on separation-of-powers grounds. The enacted act retains a Department of Health footnote — Section 048, Footnote 1 — providing that the department "shall not expend any general funds, federal funds or other funds under its control" to pay for "an elective abortion or a gender transition procedure, or to pay for facilities, equipment or training used to carry out an elective abortion or a gender transition procedure," for the period ending June 30, 2028.

Because the Department of Health administers Wyoming Medicaid, the footnote bars Medicaid and other public funding streams under the department's control from covering gender-affirming care for transgender Wyomingites, placing that care alongside elective abortion as a categorical funding exclusion. The 2026 footnote uses the broad "gender transition procedure" formulation, a wider framing than the state's earlier budget language that had enumerated specific procedures. It is distinct from a separate 2026 Wyoming measure (H.B. 122 / HEA 21, signed March 6, 2026) that bars a different funding stream from the same category of care.