RFK Jr. rolls back rule protecting LGBTQ+ kids in foster care from hostile parents

President Donald Trump’s administration has formally stripped away federal protections for LGBTQ+ children in foster care, a move that former officials, advocates, and foster youth themselves say will make life harder for young people already facing some of the highest levels of rejection, instability, and trauma in the child welfare system.

Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Department of Health and Human Services published the rescission Tuesday, eliminating a Biden-era rule that had been designed to help ensure that LGBTQ+ foster children could be placed in supportive homes, seek relief from hostile placements, and be protected from dangerous so-called “conversion therapy” and retaliation.

For critics of the move, the policy change is not simply a matter of regulatory housekeeping. It is another example of the Trump administration removing safeguards from a group of vulnerable young people whose lives are already difficult enough.

Related: Trump administration confirms it’s restoring LGBTQ+ youth crisis line it eliminated last year

LGBTQ+ foster youth already face worse outcomes

Research, including from the Williams Institute at UCLA’s Law School, consistently shows that LGBTQ+ young people are overrepresented in foster care and fare worse within the system. The consequences extend beyond where children are placed. The Trevor Project found that LGBTQ+ young people with a history of foster care had nearly three times the odds of attempting suicide in the previous year compared with those who had never been in the system. Forty percent of transgender and nonbinary respondents with foster care histories said they had been kicked out, abandoned, or forced to run away because of mistreatment tied to their LGBTQ+ identity.

Julie Kruse, a former senior adviser on LGBTQI+ initiatives at HHS’ Administration for Children and Families, said LGBTQ+ foster youth are often overrepresented in the system because of rejection by their families of origin, then face fewer paths out once they enter it. They are less likely to be reunified, adopted, or placed permanently with relatives.

“They have no off-ramp,” she told The Advocate in an interview.

Related: RFK Jr.’s HHS proposes scrapping protections for LGBTQ+ kids in foster care

What the Biden-era rule protected

The Biden administration’s 2024 rule sought to address some of those realities. It required state and tribal child welfare agencies that receive federal funding under Titles IV-E and IV-B of the Social Security Act to make specially trained, supportive placements available to LGBTQ+ children who request or would benefit from them. It also created a formal process for children to report mistreatment, request a different placement, and seek help for caregivers. The rule barred retaliation and treated efforts to suppress or change a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity through conversion therapy as prohibited conduct.

It did not require every foster parent to accept an LGBTQ+ child, nor did it require all foster homes to become designated placements.

“The rule did not cover medical care for transgender foster youth. It just didn’t go there,” Kruse said.

Instead, she explained, the rule was about trying to make an already difficult system less harmful for LGBTQ+ children by ensuring that foster parents who agreed to care for them in designated placements were trained and supportive.

“Anybody who says it’s about anything else is just trying to muddy the waters and justify mistreatment and abuse because, frankly, conversion therapy is abuse,” she said.

Related: The Trump administration is excluding The Trevor Project from the 988 service it helped create

A protection blocked before it could take effect

On March 13, 2025, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle stayed the Biden rule nationwide, finding that HHS lacked authority to issue it. On June 13, 2025, the court granted a joint request from Texas and the Trump administration to enter final judgment and vacated the rule in its entirety, leaving it without legal force.

This week’s action formally removes the vacated provisions from the Code of Federal Regulations. ACF said the deletion was necessary to keep the regulations accurate and provide clarity to child welfare agencies and the public.

But former Biden officials say clarity is not the same thing as care.

“In the Biden administration, we at HHS were very proud to finalize a rule that provided groundbreaking support for LGBTQI+ youth in the foster care system,” Adrian Shanker, a former deputy assistant secretary for health policy at HHS, told The Advocate in an interview on Tuesday.

Shanker said the rule gave LGBTQ+ children a route out of placements where they were being mistreated and ensured they could seek support tied to their identities.

“That rule yesterday was rescinded by the Trump administration, which is just one more tragic anti-LGBTQI+ action that this administration has taken to harm those in our community who are most vulnerable,” he said.

He added that the rescission does not erase the reality that made the policy necessary in the first place.

“LGBTQI+ youth in the foster care system are unquestionably some of the most vulnerable parts of our community and one of the parts of the community that really needs our help the most,” Shanker said. “When they rescinded this rule, it does not change the needs of the youth in the foster care system who still need these protections.”

Kruse said LGBTQ+ foster youth are often overrepresented in the system because of rejection by their families of origin, and then face fewer paths out once they enter it. They are less likely to be reunified, adopted, or placed permanently with relatives.

“They have no off-ramp,” she said.

That human reality is what makes the Trump administration’s decision feel so punishing to people who have lived through foster care themselves.

Related: Donald Trump has begun eroding federal LGBTQ+ protections through executive orders

‘It’s harder to come out when you’re in foster care’

Weston Charles-Gallo, 27, told The Advocate on Wednesday that he entered foster care as a teenager after coming out as gay to his biological parents. Instead of feeling safe, he said, the experience left him feeling unsupported and unsure of where he belonged.

“Me coming out essentially hindered me from finding my forever family sooner,” he said.

For LGBTQ+ children in foster care, he said, coming out can intensify the trauma they are already carrying. A child may already be coping with family separation, uncertainty, and repeated moves while also trying to determine whether the adults responsible for their care will accept them.

“It’s already hard to come out, and then it’s harder to come out when you’re in foster care,” he said.

That is why critics say the rescission amounts to more than a legal rollback. It sends a message to LGBTQ+ foster youth that their safety, identity, and sense of belonging matter less to the federal government than the objections of adults.

The administration also cast the change as a cost-saving measure, estimating that rescinding the rule would avert about $35.5 million in costs over time, including expenses tied to provider recruitment and training.

To people who worked on the rule, that rationale misses the point. The costs the administration is counting, they argue, are the costs of trying to protect kids. The costs it is not counting are the ones borne by children placed in homes where they may be rejected, demeaned, or pressured to change who they are.

Protections will now depend on where a child lives

States and local governments may continue to enforce their own protections, and the rescission does not prevent foster care agencies or providers from voluntarily maintaining supportive placement programs. But advocates say that without a federal standard, those protections will now depend on geography, agency leadership, and the willingness of individual adults to do what Washington no longer requires.

The Advocate contacted the Administration for Children and Families for comment, but the agency did not respond.

For Charles-Gallo, the stakes are immediate for the children still in care. He said those children should know they have not been forgotten.

“You’re not alone,” he said. “There are people who you might not see today, but know that people are working and striving and really advocating for you.”

“You are enough,” he added. “You are deserving of a family. Everyone is deserving of a family.”