Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia speaks outside the Capitol on April 28, 2022.
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday introduced a bill to bar gender-affirming care for minors.
Under the bill, providing such care would result in a felony conviction punishable by up to 25 years in jail.
The legislation would also block colleges and universities from offering any lessons on gender-affirming care.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday introduced a bill that would make it a felony to offer gender-affirming medical care to transgender youth under 18 years of age.
The “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” would bar numerous medical procedures that are utilized to treat gender dysphoria in transgender minors, including puberty blockers and particular surgeries that allow individuals to alter their body “to correspond to a sex that differs from their biological sex.”
The legislation would allow disallow federal funding for gender-affirming health care.
During a Thursday appearance on the Fox News program “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Georgia Republican remarked that such care was “child abuse” and argued it needed to be halted.
“When it comes to ‘gender-affirming care,’ which is really child abuse, this is actually an assault and it’s child abuse,” she said.
“This practice should never happen,” she added before delving into surgeries that some transgender minors have received. “This needs to be illegal.”
Under the bill, anyone performing such care would face a penalty of 10 to 25 years in jail, along with a maximum fine of $250,000, according to The Hill.
The bill follows the passage of an Alabama law that makes it a felony for doctors to aid transgender youth under 19 years of age in receiving gender-affirming care.
A federal judge earlier this year partially blocked Alabama from enforcing its law; the medication part of the ban remains in effect, but health providers are still able to offer puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
Greene’s legislation, which has 14 GOP cosponsors, would also block colleges and universities from offering any instruction on gender-affirming care.
The congresswoman on Friday tweeted that JD Vance and Blake Masters, the GOP Senate nominees in Ohio and Arizona, respectively, have said they’d both back the bill if they’re elected to the upper chamber this fall.
The bill has virtually no chance of passing in the current Democratic-led Congress, but Republicans in recent months have sought to tie transgender care to larger cultural issues across the country.