The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation banning so-called gender transition procedures for minors, but the measure looks likely to stall in the closely divided U.S. Senate.
The Republican-controlled lower chamber voted 216-211 on Wednesday to pass the Protect Children’s Innocence Act. The measure subjects anyone who “knowingly performs, or attempts to perform genital or body mutilation on another person, who is a minor” to a fine and the possibility of up to 10 years in prison. The legislation also subjects individuals who assist in the performance of the life-altering procedures to the same penalty.
Support for the legislation fell mainly along party lines, with most support coming from Republicans and most opposition coming from Democrats. Reps. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Mike Kennedy, R-Utah, and Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., joined most Democrats in voting against the bill while Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, Don Davis, D-N.C., and Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, joined most Republicans in supporting it.
In addition to banning sex change surgeries that remove healthy body parts that align with an individual’s sex and the creation of artificial body parts that align with an individual’s stated gender identity, the bill also prohibits “chemical castration” in the form of puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones.
The bill must pass the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate before it can reach President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature. While Republicans hold 53 of 100 seats in the U.S. Senate, most legislation requires 60 votes to pass. Since seven Senate Democrats are not expected to back the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, it faces long odds for passage in the U.S. Senate.
Twenty-seven states have already enacted policies banning some or all types of gender transition procedures for minors based on concerns about their long-term impacts: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
As stated by the American College of Pediatricians, side effects of puberty blockers can include “osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, cognitive impairment, and, when combined with cross-sex hormones, sterility.” Meanwhile, cross-sex hormones can cause youth to experience “an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots and cancers across their lifespan.”
The long-term side effects of sex-change surgeries were a significant focus of a press conference hosted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday, where detransitioner Chloe Cole shared the emotional anguish she experienced as a result of undergoing life-altering procedures as a teenager only to regret doing so at an older age.
Because she had her breasts removed as a teenager, Cole said she will never be able to breastfeed a child and condemned such surgeries as “unscientific medical abuse that violates every tenet of medical ethics.”
“This ideology is festering at an unimaginable scale within our hospital systems, our culture, our communities and too many within our own families,” she said. “There are tears that I don’t show the world.”
“There’s grief, every single day, I carry with me silently,” Cole shared. “The only thing in the world that makes me angry is knowing that this is continuing to happen to children all across the United States and throughout the globe.”
Thursday’s press conference featured Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announcing that his agency submitted a proposed rule that would withhold federal funding from hospitals that perform gender transition procedures on minors. The Trump administration has made halting the performance of the life-altering procedures on minors a top priority.
Just a week after taking office, Trump signed an executive order into law that establishes the policy of the U.S. as to “not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another” and “rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
Laws prohibiting the performance of gender transition procedures on minors have withstood constitutional scrutiny, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year in United States v. Skrmetti that Tennessee’s ban on gender transition procedures for minors did not violate the U.S. Constitution.
In recent years, European medical bodies, such as those in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Norway, have reevaluated their approaches to treating children with gender dysphoria.
Last year, the U.K.’s National Health Service instructed gender clinics to pause first appointments for kids under 18 after a formal review of how the government service treats youth with gender dysphoria led by Dr. Hilary Cass, the retired former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Cass found there is “no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
