An Urgent Update on the GOP’s Escalating War on Trans Bodies

In a series of moves this week, Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration advanced measures sharply restricting medical care for transgender youth. Continuing the GOP’s war on gender-affirming treatment and trans civil rights.

Congress Votes to Criminalize Gender-affirming Care

On Dec. 17, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act.“ Legislation that would make providing gender-affirming medical care to minors a federal crime punishable by fines and up to 10 years in prison for health care providers. The bill passed 216 to 211 along party lines, with three Democrats joining Republicans in support. Four Republicans voted against it.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, defines treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries for transgender minors as forms of “mutilation” or “chemical castration.” It reclassifies these treatments under existing federal criminal statutes and could subject doctors who provide them to felony charges.

Supporters argue the bill protects children from irreversible medical interventions. Critics, including civil rights groups and major medical organizations, call it unprecedented and harmful. The ACLU described the measure as “the most extreme anti-trans legislation ever considered by Congress.” Warning it would place politicians between families and doctors. 

Opponents of Harm Speak Up

Opponents also highlight that every major U.S. medical association, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, supports gender-affirming care as medically necessary and lifesaving for many transgender youth. They argue that restricting it could worsen mental health outcomes and increase risks of depression and suicide. 

“These moves threaten to turn doctors into criminals and hospitals into battlegrounds, all at the expense of trans kids and their families,” said Khadijah M. Silver, a transgender civil rights attorney with Lawyers for Good Government, in a statement to LoveBScott.

Despite passage in the House, the bill’s prospects in the Democrat-controlled Senate are uncertain. Even if it were to clear that chamber, legal challenges are expected, with civil liberties advocates promising to fight what they characterize as unconstitutional federal overreach.

Trump Follows Anti-trans Suit

The legislative attack came just a day before another federal confrontation over transgender youth care. On Dec. 18, the Trump administration announced a set of proposed federal rules aimed at drastically curtailing access to gender-affirming health care for minors nationwide. 

In regulatory proposals released Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would revoke Medicare and Medicaid funding from hospitals and providers that offer gender-affirming care to patients under 18. The rules also seek to redefine gender dysphoria so it would no longer receive disability protections and bar funding for medical procedures including puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and surgeries for minors. 

Kennedy, speaking at an event to announce the rules, labeled these treatments “malpractice” and said the administration was moving to end what its leaders describe as “sex-rejecting procedures” for children.

The Damages Ahead

Advocates for transgender rights strongly oppose the action, noting that gender-affirming care is endorsed by major medical bodies and is linked with improved mental health outcomes for transgender adolescents. The Human Rights Campaign and other LGBTQIA+ organizations have condemned the proposed rules as ideologically driven, warning that they would block access to essential care for thousands of young people. 

The proposed regulations are subject to a public comment period before they can become final, and legal challenges are likely. Even so, the administration’s efforts reflect a broader federal strategy, following earlier executive orders this year that targeted transgender people’s access to healthcare, military service, and other rights.

What do you think about legislation regarding young trans people? Have you heard more about anti-trans bills this year?

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