WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a Republican-backed bill seeking to ban gender-affirming care for minors, a move that would make several medical procedures a federal crime. The legislation was approved by a narrow 216-211 vote and now heads to the Senate, where its prospects remain uncertain.The bill, sponsored by Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, outlaws what it describes as “genital or bodily mutilation of a minor,” a provision that would effectively prohibit gender-affirming medical treatments for transgender children. While many US states have already enacted similar bans, the measure would establish a nationwide prohibition.
“This important bill…will criminalize gender-affirming care on minors, not adults, on minors who have not yet grown up to make adult decisions,” Greene said ahead of the vote.The legislation explicitly criminalises female genital mutilation but also targets surgeries intended to alter a minor’s body “to correspond to a sex that differs from their biological sex.” It further restricts certain pharmacological treatments, including the use of puberty blockers. Under the bill, anyone performing or facilitating such procedures could face up to 10 years in prison along with financial penalties.Greene described the measure as “a direct reflection of President Trump’s executive order and every single Republican’s campaign promise in 2024.”Former president Donald Trump campaigned aggressively against transgender-related policies during last year’s election and moved early in his second term to roll back measures recognising diverse gender identities. His administration has also sought to bar transgender people from military service and reduce funding for schools that allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.Democratic lawmaker Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, criticised the bill. “All Republican politicians care about is making the rich richer and attacking trans people,” the Delaware representative told reporters outside the Capitol.Transgender rights group Advocates for Trans Equality said the legislation “attempts to strip both transgender and intersex people of their freedom to make decisions about their own bodies.” The group noted that the bill continues to allow surgeries on intersex children, describing them as “non-consensual surgeries that are actual cases of mutilation.”“The bill is not about protecting children — it is about enforcing outdated ideas of sex and gender through coercion and violence,” said A4TE health policy analyst Sinead Murano-Kinney.
