WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration took major steps Thursday in a campaign to block minors’ access to gender-affirming care nationwide.

Under two proposed new rules from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, hospitals would be barred from providing gender transition treatment for children as a condition of participating in Medicare and Medicaid programs, and Medicaid funding would be prohibited from being used to fund such care for minors.

As most hospitals receive Medicare and Medicaid funding, the rules would essentially have the effect of a nationwide ban if they are finalized.

The announcement came a day after the U.S. House passed a bill that would impose federal criminal penalties for gender-affirming care for minors and hours before it advanced a separate measure that would prohibit Medicaid funding for gender transition treatment for minors.

The proposed regulations, which will next undergo a period of public comments, are certain to draw legal challenges.

The efforts build on Trump’s executive order in January that restricted access to gender-affirming care for kids.

More than half of states already have laws or policies aimed at limiting youth access to gender-affirming care, according to the nonpartisan health research organization KFF.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced the proposals alongside several other health officials at a press conference at HHS headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The room featured a handful of GOP members of Congress. At least two Republican state attorneys general — Ken Paxton of Texas and Todd Rokita of Indiana — were also in attendance.

At the press conference, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said the FDA is also sending “warning letters” to 12 breast binder manufacturers and sellers for “illegal marketing of breast binders for children for the purposes of treating gender dysphoria.”

Breast binders are used to flatten tissue in the chest.

Kennedy said his agency’s Office for Civil Rights is moving to “reverse the Biden administration’s attempt to include gender dysphoria within the definition of disability.”