Senator introduces bill banning medical mutilation for kids
Senator Roger “Doc” Marshall (R-KS) last week introduced a bill aimed at stopping medical providers from subjecting children to medical mutilation procedures, or what gender activists refer to as “gender-affirming care.”
What the bill says
The Safeguarding The Overall Protection of Minors (STOP) Act would make it illegal for doctors or hospitals to administer puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to children. These drugs cause irreversible harm like sterility, castration, loss of sexual satisfaction, suicidality, blood clots, heart damage, tumors, and bone density loss. The STOP Act also prohibits medical providers from performing genital surgeries and double mastectomies on kids for “gender identity” purposes.
The bill does not apply only to physicians. Any healthcare professional can be hit with a $100,000 civil penalty if they “knowingly perform, attempt to perform, conspire to perform, or provide a referral for any gender transition procedure on a minor.” That includes mental health workers who refer children for “gender-affirming care,” as well as any medical institution where medical mutilation procedures are performed. These medical providers are collectively referred to by many ethical doctors as “transpredators.”
In addition, the bill would fund programs to help gender medicine victims try to reverse some of the effects of such interventions, a process known as “de-transitioning.”
‘Americans resoundingly reject’ gender ideology
Recent surveys suggest Marshall’s bill will gain strong support from the American public. A poll last month found that most Americans oppose gender ideology, including 72% who think it should be illegal to perform medical mutilation procedures on children under 18. The number of Americans who oppose these procedures, including 86% of Republicans and 58% of Democrats, has jumped 10 points since August.
“Americans resoundingly rejected the Left’s dangerous transgender agenda. Let’s call it exactly what it is: child abuse,” said Marshall, who practiced as an OB/GYN for over 25 years. “The days of demented doctors and activists getting rich off of mutilating, sterilizing, and castrating children are over.”
Figures show that each transgender patient can earn medical providers at least $1 million, making medical mutilation an extremely lucrative enterprise.
“I just want to emphasize that this is mutilating children,” Senator Marshall said in a Newsmax interview Thursday. “It’s irreversible, whether it’s the surgeries or the hormones – most of the hormonal changes are irreversible as well. They lead to osteoporosis, they lead to infertility. For girls taking testosterone, it causes structural changes in their face, and once they start having the beard, that never reverses as well. So I think this is really important that we protect the children who don’t have the emotional maturity to make this type of decision.”
Defining men and women
Last month, Sen. Marshall introduced a separate bill, the Defining Male and Female Act of 2024, which declares there are only male and female genders. It also affirms that a person’s gender is based on his or her biological sex, not “self-identification.” The bill defines terms such as “girl,” “boy,” “woman,” and “man” and aims to codify those definitions so that discrimination laws are clear and effective. Senators James Risch (R-ID), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) co-sponsored the legislation.
