The Biden administration appears to be repurposing a federal program aimed at helping kids in the foster care system transition to adulthood, instead using the taxpayer dollars to fund efforts by children to transition into the opposite sex.

Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says federal taxpayer dollars can be spent towards buying “personal items” that support “a youth’s expression of their gender identity,” which typically refer to accessories such as chest binders and so-called packers, which are prosthetic penises used by girls who want it to appear like they have male genitals.

A document from the Children’s Bureau, a federal agency which operates under the authority of HHS, reveals that federal funds can now be used by child welfare agencies to “support the provision of services, interventions, and supports to LGBTQIA2S+ children.” The document, titled “Federal Funding to Support Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit, Plus (LGBTQIA2S+) Children, Youth, Young Adults, and Families,” explains that child welfare funds can now be used to encourage children to attempt to change their sex.

“[John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood] funding may be used in a number of ways to support LGBTQIA2S+ youth and allow them to participate in positive, affirming, age-appropriate activities,” the document states in reference to a foster care funding system. “For example, Chafee funds may be used to purchase personal items related to supporting a youth’s expression of their gender identity and/or sexual orientation.”

The Chafee funding program was originally intended to help children in the foster care system adjust to adult life, funding education, housing, and employment services. LGBT non-profit organizations took Biden’s policy guidance as an announcement that garments such as chest binders, used to flatten a girl’s breasts, and packers, which are prosthetic penises, can be purchased with federal dollars.

“Guidance from the Children’s Bureau indicates that child welfare agencies may be able to use Chafee funding to purchase gender affirming items for young people in their care,” the National Center for Youth with Diverse Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Expression states in a document laying out how federal funds can be used to encourage child sex change attempts. “This resource offers a list of common items that may be purchased using Chafee funding.”

The organization’s resource lists both binders and packers as eligible items, as well as a range of other items.

“Binders are purpose-built undergarments … that are used to flatten breasts and create the appearance of a flatter chest,” the guide reads, before directing the reader to a site where “young people can go discreetly to learn what’s best for them.”

In regards to packers, it says they can be purchased for children with federal funds and describes them as “stand-to-pee devices that can be used as prosthesis that allow transboys and masculine people the appearance and feeling of having male genitals.” The accessories are used to help women use men’s restrooms and urinals. It says that gaffs, described as “compression underwear that smooth out the appearance of outer genitalia,” can also be bought with federal funds.

Neither HHS nor the Children’s Bureau responded to Daily Wire inquiries asking specifically which items are included in the government’s definition of “personal items” to support youth’s gender identities.

Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) told The Daily Wire that the Biden administration has an unsettling obsession with the personal lives of children. “Bureaucrats in the Biden administration seem obsessed with the personal lives of vulnerable children—it’s creepy,” he explained. “When Secretary Becerra testifies tomorrow, House Republicans must make him answer for his attacks on parents’ rights and his attempts to push harmful gender procedures on minors.”

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a former dean at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, said that giving children these sorts of items puts them on a path toward “irreversible harm.”

“The great risk of fostering so-called affirming care is that it almost certainly will lead to medicalization, such as the use of puberty blockers and sex altering hormones,” said Goldfarb, who now runs Do No Harm, an organization that opposes the politicization of medicine. “We know that the vast majority of children who have gender dysphoria, if supported through psychological counseling and psychiatric care, will go through puberty and live their lives in the gender that conforms to their sex. To give them various devices to promote social transition is a step in the path to irreversible harm in the vast majority of these children.”

Goldfarb said children experiencing gender dysphoria need legitimate support, not interventions that push an ideological agenda and put them on the path to medicalization.

“These children are extremely vulnerable and do need support services,” Goldfarb said. “But support services designed to implement a particular gender ideology that medical evidence has not shown to produce positive emotional or psychiatric outcomes should not be supported by the government.”

Certain states are more explicit about their desire to provide children with binders and packers.

Oregon’s Department of Human Services, for example, funds “gender affirming products for young people.” One document from the state government explains that these products include “chest binders, bras, bra inserts, shaving supplies, packers, stand-to-urinate devices, gaffs, wigs, makeup, menstrual supports, or clothing that help young people affirm their gender identity.”

In Massachusetts, the Department of Children and Families connects minors to organizations that “provide gender-affirming clothing, such as binders, packers, body shapers, bras, breast inserts, and similar items in a timely manner.”

Prominent Democrats have continuously advocated for policies that make it easier for children to attempt to transition into the opposite sex. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) came under criticism for earmarking $400,000 in taxpayer funds to an LGBTQ youth organization that offers minors binders, packers, and even prosthetic breasts.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order in 2022 that intended to “address the significant disparities that LGBTQI+ youth face in the foster care system” and fight back against “efforts to suppress or change an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” While the federal bureaucracy has been leveraged in service of leftwing agenda items under Biden, former President Donald Trump has pledged to fire bureaucrats who might otherwise stonewall his policy priorities.