Sen. J.D. Vance, Ohio Republican, introduced legislation earlier this week that would make gender-affirming care for minors a federal crime.
Mr. Vance’s bill, the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, would ban gender-transition surgeries, puberty blockers, hormone treatments and other transgender-related medical care from being provided to minors.
People that administer gender-affirming care to children would be charged with a federal class C felony, which carries a sentence of 10 to 25 years in prison.
The bill prevents federal funding from going toward gender-affirming care, including blocking Affordable Care Act insurance plans paying for procedures. Mr. Vance’s measure would also ban universities from teaching about gender-affirming care, and prevent illegal aliens that performed transgender-related medical procedures on children from getting visas.
“Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children,” Mr. Vance said in a statement. “With this legislation, we have an opportunity to save countless young Americans from a lifetime of suffering and regret.”
Mr. Vance’s measure is a companion bill to Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene’s legislation of the same name. Ms. Greene’s bill, which was introduced last year, has 45 cosponsors in the House.
Ms. Greene, Georgia Republican, thanked Mr. Vance for introducing the measure in the Senate.
“Every Republican in Congress should sign on as a cosponsor to this important legislation,” Ms. Greene said on Twitter. “We must end the genital mutilation of kids!”
A Reuter’s study, which compiled health insurance claim data that showed gender dysphoria diagnoses and gender-affirming care, indicated that over 121,000 children were diagnosed with gender dysphoria between 2017 and 2021.
During that same time period, 4,780 youth that had a gender dysphoria diagnosis started taking puberty blockers, while nearly 15,000 minors underwent hormone therapy.
Surgeries were far less common. There were 776 top surgeries, which remove breasts, between 2019 and 2021. There were 56 genital surgeries during that same three-year span.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washigtontimes.com.