Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced a bill Wednesday to allow children harmed by transgender procedures to sue the doctors and hospitals that carried out the operations.
Hawley’s bill would enable individuals to sue the pediatric gender clinics and doctors who gave them cross-sex hormones or performed transgender surgery on them as minors. The legislation comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order blocking federal funding for any hospital that performs such procedures.
“Our children should no longer suffer from irreversible and dangerous child mutilation procedures, which the Biden administration enabled and promoted,” Hawley said. “I welcome President Trump’s strong action to reverse this child abuse and look forward to working with his administration to advance legislation that protects our kids.”
Hawley’s legislation, known as the “Protecting Our Kids from Child Abuse Act,” would allow lawsuits “against pediatric gender clinics and other entities pushing gender-transition procedures that cause bodily injury to children or harm the mental health of children.”
The bill follows closely Trump’s executive order, which called for the attorney general to work with Congress to pass a law allowing lawsuits against entities that performed transgender procedures on minors.
These procedures include providing children with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, performing surgeries to remove the breasts of girls who identify as boys, and genital procedures. Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones have been linked with heart problems, fertility issues, and can harm bone development.
Entities that could be held liable include pediatric gender clinics, doctors, and universities that house or operate gender clinics.
A lawsuit could be brought up to 30 years after the harmed individual turned 18, and the person could be entitled to both punitive and compensatory damages. The bill would also ban federal funding from going toward pediatric gender clinics, universities that operate pediatric gender clinics, and any gender procedure on a minor.
Trump’s executive order said that the government would no longer fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support transgender procedures on children.
“Today, it was my great honor to sign an Executive Order banning the chemical castration and medical mutilation of innocent children in the United States of America,” Trump said on Truth Social. “My Order directs Agencies to use every available means to cut off Federal financial participation in institutions which seek to provide these barbaric medical procedures, that should have never been allowed to take place!”
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