GOP bill bans transgender treatment for minors, threatens fines, prison for doctors who don’t comply

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Dozens of House and Senate Republicans are backing new legislation this week that would prohibit gender transition treatment on minors across the country and would hit doctors with fines and prison terms up to five years if they violate this prohibition.

The lead sponsor of the bills, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., and Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., also put forward a separate bill aimed at banning taxpayer-funded transition treatment. The two lawmakers said their bills are needed to protect both children and the conscience of the nation given the sudden push to "normalize early and aggressive gender transition procedures for children."

"Across the country, vulnerable children are being exposed to radical gender transition ideology and pressured into going through invasive and irreversible medical procedures," LaMalfa said this week. "Minors should not be making these permanent decisions as minors. Adults should not be pushing minor children and teens into irreversible decisions either. Let kids be kids and wait until adulthood to make a choice they likely wish they hadn’t as a child."

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Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., and Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., have proposed legislation to ban transgender medical treatment for minors, and to block all public funding for this treatment. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call). (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) (Getty Images)

"Enough is enough," said Marshall. "These procedures can cause severe and irreversible damage to children's bodies and have long-term detrimental health risks. We must protect our kids and make sure American taxpayers aren’t footing the bill for these dangerous procedures."

The lawmakers’ first bill, the Protecting Children from Experimentation Act, would ban all gender transition procedures on people under the age of 18. Under this bill, doctors would be exposed to fines and a prison term of up to five years if they knowingly perform these treatments on minors and would allow the minor to sue the doctor who provided this treatment.

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Protests have taken place around the country in favor of more rights for transgender students and people. (Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images)

The bill defines a transition-related treatment as any surgery to remove part of or alter a minor’s physical anatomy, as well as the use of drugs related to gender transitioning such as puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones.

The lawmakers’ second bill would impose a ban on the use of federal funds for gender transition treatment on minors.

Both bills make exceptions for doctors who perform services for minors who are born with a "medically verifiable disorder of sex development, including an individual with external biological sex characteristics that are irresolvably ambiguous," such as a person born with both "ovarian and testicular tissue." Other exceptions in the bill allow treatment for people who are recovering from infection or other problems related to a past gender transition procedure.

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President Biden has supported transgender rights, and his administration has supported "gender affirming" health care for transgender people. ((Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images))

A House aide said LaMalfa is working to raise awareness about the bills in the House and is working with the House Anti-Woke Caucus to host a briefing on them with medical experts.

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The two House bills from LaMalfa are each sponsored by more than 30 GOP lawmakers – Marshall’s bill banning taxpayer-funded gender procedures has 11 cosponsors, and his bill banning all procedures nationwide has seven cosponsors.