Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to have sponsored this legislation and have fought this battle for many years. I think we could actually get it done this time. I am not sure that my colleagues even believe what they are saying. I think they…
Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to have sponsored this legislation and have fought this battle for many years.
I think we could actually get it done this time. I am not sure that my colleagues even believe what they are saying. I think they know that their constituents don't believe it.
Let's not forget that, in the 1930s, the medical community believed that lobotomies could cure psychosis. They also believed that electroshock therapy could do the same. They even gave the lobotomy inventor a Nobel Prize in 1949. Then the science caught up with the ideology, and medicine was changed for the better.
Today's great sin in medicine is perhaps one of the worst that we have seen in human history. It is a sick and twisted ideology paired with a social media-fueled social contagion that has actually normalized the ultimate lie, which is that biological gender does not matter and can even be changed. Here is the greatest sin: that this lie also applies to children.
There are some very simple, fundamental truths in life: Men are men, women are women, and children are innocent. They can't be told that they are in the wrong body.
Mutilating children is wrong. Irreversible treatments on children who need therapy is wrong. These truths are very obvious to the vast majority of Americans, and it takes an incredible amount of propaganda and institutional coercion to get an entire society to even question these truths. Yet that is exactly what has happened.
Mr. Speaker, polls indicate that more than 70 percent of Americans support a full ban on puberty blockers for minors. That is from places like The Washington Post.
Imagine if the question had been asked differently. That is just about puberty blockers. What if they had been asked about double mastectomies on 12-year-old girls. I think the number would be probably approximately 90 percent, maybe higher.
Mr. Speaker, I am not arguing with my colleagues. I am pleading with Members to understand this. Their constituents don't want children to undergo gender transformations. They don't.
Their constituents know that kids are too young to understand the consequences of permanent physiological changes. I think my colleagues know it, too.
Even if my colleagues are uncertain about that, I think they can be rest assured that they definitely don't want their tax dollars to pay for it, which is all this bill does.
This debate is so often buried under euphemisms. There is gender- affirming care. There is a medical consensus. There is a standard of care.
Strip away the language. Here is the reality: Healthy children are being placed on drugs that halt normal development, sterilize them, permanently alter their bodies before they are even old enough to vote or drink or get a tattoo.
These are kids suffering from teenage angst, and I don't deny the existence of gender dysphoria. However, psychotherapy is the answer to that, not permanent hormonal changes or surgical mutilations. That is not compassion. That is not medicine. That is an abomination.
We are told that questioning this practice puts children at risk and that if we don't medicalize a child's distress, they will take their own life. That claim has been debunked. It is not supported by science. Studies from all over the world have proven it false, and those who continue to promulgate it should be ashamed.
The highest quality medical reviews have consistently found no clear evidence that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgeries reduce suicide risk in minors--none. Yet we are told to suspend our moral judgment, suspend scientific skepticism, and accept irreversible harm as the default response to childhood stress. That is not how responsible medicine works.
Puberty blockers are not approved by the FDA for treating gender dysphoria. They were never designed to interrupt normal puberty in otherwise healthy children. Cross-sex hormones can permanently compromise fertility. Surgeries irreversibly alter healthy organs. These are not neutral acts.
These are life-altering decisions imposed on minors whose brains, identities, and bodies are still developing.
We are told that treatments are reversible. That claim is very false. International health authorities have concluded that suppressing puberty often locks children into a pathway toward permanent medical transition. Nearly every child placed on puberty blockers proceeds with the cross-sex hormones. The so-called pause button that almost always leads to irreversible outcomes is not a pause. It is a trap.
While activists insist this is settled science, the rest of the world is pulling the emergency brake. The United Kingdom now limits puberty blockers. Sweden and Finland have sharply restricted their use. France's medical authorities warn of serious risks to bone development and fertility. Those lying, depraved activists reviewed the same evidence and said, No, we are good with it.
Children suffering from gender dysphoria deserve care,
dignity, and clinical compassion, but that compassion does not mean pushing them on a medical pathway that leads to irreversible physical harm.
The answer is in evidence-based psychotherapy care, therapy, family support, and clinical monitoring over time.
What does this bill even do? The Do No Harm in Medicaid Act draws a very clear moral line that the government will not participate in, endorse, or normalize irreversible gender surgeries and chemical interventions on minors.
It is codifying President Trump's agenda to protect our children and keep them healthy. It says he won't be complicit.
Medicaid won't fund this abomination, but contrary to what many of the claims are, it preserves narrow exceptions for genuine medical conditions, like early onset puberty, disorders of sex development, and treatment of complications.
This was a very carefully crafted bill that addresses all the concerns that have been raised. It is not about hate. It is not about politics. It is about protecting kids when adults fail them. It is an easy vote.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the Do No Harm in Medicaid Act, please.
Mr. Speaker, I don't need much time.
The question was asked if we had ever bothered speaking to trans kids. The answer is absolutely yes. Maybe that is why I am so passionate about this. It turns out there are hundreds and hundreds, thousands perhaps, of trans kids who were coerced by radicalized doctors. Their parents were lied to.
Their parents were given studies that said there is a 1 percent remorse rate. These studies are based on nonsense. They are not even based on a pool of participants that are minors. They were told that these things are just a pause button, that it is reversible, that this is just a standard of care. Standard of care based on what? Based on junk science. We cannot base standards of care on junk science.
Now, the science has caught up: the Cass Review study, the systematic review, which is the gold standard of any kind of study because it looks at all the different studies methodically, and then the 300-page review that HHS just did.
I have had them on my podcast twice to talk about their experiences. Chloe Cole spoke at the Department of Health and Human Services just now, about an hour ago. Chloe Cole, at 12 years old, was going through what a lot of 12-year-olds are going through. She is a tomboy. She has older brothers. She likes sports. She is confused. Doctors tell her that she is a boy. They convinced her parents of the same. She is put on puberty blockers and soon on high levels of testosterone. By age 15, she has a double mastectomy. She is not sure if she can ever have kids, and she definitely can't feed her children normally.
Yes, we have talked to them. Maybe my colleagues on the other side should, too.
Mr. Speaker, I will not be long. I will just ask a simple question, because the statement was made that all the science suggests that these procedures are medically necessary.
Can they cite their sources? Show me the studies. I cited mine. Cite their sources.
Mr. Speaker, again, it has been stated that these so- called treatments are safe and effective and save lives. I ask the gentlewoman again: Cite your sources. Cite your sources.
You won't. That is because you know that I know all of the sources that you are going to cite. You know what I am going to say about them: about the problems with their methodology; about the pool of participants they use; about how short those studies were; and about how most of them didn't even apply to minors.
You know what I am going to say, and so you won't cite your sources.
Mr. Speaker, I will cite mine. We have systematic reviews that have been published and accepted throughout the scientific community. That is why the rest of the Western world is reversing their stance on this, and the United States needs to also.
That is because I couldn't tell if that speech about harming kids was about our bill or about the act of conducting irreversible physiological changes on children who are going through gender dysphoria.
Yes, we are trying to protect kids. We are trying to love our kids.
Mr. Speaker, this claim is made over and over, that allowing gender-affirming care, as they call it, is saving lives. The problem with that claim is that there is no evidence to suggest that.
All of the reviews, all of the studies, all of the systematic reviews--a systematic review means a systematic review of all of the studies--show that there can be no clear line drawn between suicide rates and doing this kind of care.
A paper published in the British Medical Journal examined the landscape. Mr. Speaker, 61 systematic studies concluded there is great uncertainty about the effects of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries in young people.
On suicide risk, there is no clear evidence that these medical interventions prevent suicide. A 2020 study analyzing trans-identifying patients of all ages over 40-plus years found that suicides occur at every stage of medical transition.
A 2021 systematic review concluded that based on available data, no conclusions can be drawn about whether hormones, puberty blockers, or surgeries reduced suicide risk.
Again, in 2024, another independent review found that Britain's post- 2020 restriction of puberty blockers did not cause a rise in suicides despite many of the lies told on social media by activists.
They keep saying that every medical society supports this--and, so, okay, then, we have to listen to them. Well, that is true. It is because of ideological pressure rather than scientific evidence. We know that these studies that they are citing are based on low-quality evidence, small sample sizes, and very high risk of bias.
A Johns Hopkins systematic review found that the evidence supporting claims that hormonal treatments may improve quality of life, depression, and anxiety among transgender patients was ``low.'' The study called for more research, particularly on adolescents.
The same review concluded that it was about impossible--this is Johns Hopkins--it was about impossible to draw conclusions about the effects of hormone therapy on suicide risk.
Even a review published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which institutionally has supported gender transition, admits that ``evidence regarding the psychosocial and cognitive impact of hormonal treatments for transgender adolescents is generally lacking.''
I could keep going. The point here, Mr. Speaker, is you have got a problem, and it is a gender dysphoric problem. We know that a kid is going through something hard. And you want to take the most extreme possible medical intervention to deal with that while the science says we have no idea whether that is a good idea or not.
That is what the actual scientific consensus says.
Now, if the argument was: Hey, give them more fruit or something, then that is not really harmful. That would be fine. We wouldn't be arguing about it, but the minority is talking about double mastectomies. They are talking about puberty blockers and hormonal therapies that permanently change the physiology of a young person before they are old enough to even understand what they might want in 20 years.
That is the most irresponsible type of policymaking one can imagine. It is the most irresponsible type of medicine that one can imagine.
Mr. Speaker, I love debunking lies in real time. It is one of my favorite things to do.
The chairman just did a great job debunking a lie. We were just told that this is the only bill we are doing this week. No, it is not. It is an important bill, but everything he just listed was also pretty important to lower people's healthcare costs. I don't know why there was no Democratic support for it.
I want to debunk some more lies. Again, on this idea that puberty
blockers for children are safe and effective, let me read some more facts. The Center for Investigative Reporting found that the FDA received over 10,000 adverse event reports from women who took Lupron, which is a common puberty blocker, off-label as children, to help them grow taller. Reported side effects included brittle bones and fractures, tooth enamel loss and cracked teeth, spinal disk degeneration and chronic joint pain, seizures, migraines, suicidal thoughts--so it is actually the opposite, isn't it?--cognitive issues, and fertility problems.
The FDA ordered the manufacturer to add a warning label, noting that children taking Lupron may develop new or worsened psychiatric symptoms. Trans-identifying minors are already three times more likely than the general population to experience anxiety, depression, and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Why make it worse? Stop talking about compassion. They are the ones doing the opposite of compassion by tricking these kids into thinking that this might be their answer. It is not. Therapy is.
There was another claim made that this tramples on States' rights, so I guess we need to have a quick civics lesson. We are talking about Federal funding, Medicaid funding provided by the Federal Government. The Federal Government can put restrictions on what that money is used for. It is not a trampling of States' rights. It is not a trampling of doctors' rights.
Let me ask something. My daughter picks up my fake eyes, and she goes: ``Eye, eye, eye.'' She is 2. She puts it on. Maybe when she is old enough to talk, she might identify as somebody with one eye. Should I take her to the doctor and say: Hey, will you enucleate her eyeball because, you know, she identifies as monocular just as I am, just like her daddy.
Mr. Speaker, you would say that is insane. You would call that absolutely insane, and it would be insane.
Here is the reality. The scary part about that analogy is that it is actually a lot less troubling to lose an eye than it is to completely change your gender. Completely changing your gender is a far more invasive procedure than losing an eye. Trust me, I know.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, let's just summarize what we have heard today.
We have heard that so-called gender-affirming care is necessary, effective, prevents suicides, and helps vulnerable children. No one can cite any sources for that claim. They can cite letters from certain associations that are ideologically driven.
I will again read the quote from the American Academy of Pediatrics when they did a review. On hormonal treatments for transgender adolescents, APA said: ``Evidence regarding their psychosocial and cognitive impact is generally lacking.'' I get that their leadership is saying one thing, but the scientists are all saying something else.
As responsible policymakers, we might want to take a pause before we just go on and assume that permanent physiological changes to children are a good idea because they are going through something tough, whether that is gender dysphoria, teenage angst, depression, or anxiety.
If you talk about compassion, I am talking about compassion, too. Compassion is being a responsible adult in the room for that child who doesn't know all of these things.
Compassion is not a doctor lying to a child's parents about junk science in studies that say they won't have any remorse, that they will be fine, that puberty blockers are like a pause button. No, they are not. There was a study in Britain that showed 96 or 98 percent move on to hormonal therapies. It is not a pause button at all.
Again, ask the thousands of trans kids who now vehemently regret their decisions. They are in lawsuits with the doctors who did this to them. That alone should tell us to take a pause here.
Let's just take a pause on this ideology because there is no evidence that it works, and there is plenty of evidence to show that it is extreme in nature because it is permanent.
They wouldn't do this for any other body part. You can't just identify as one-armed and ask the doctor to cut off your arm. The doctor won't do it, just like the doctor won't take out someone's eye because they want to identify like me. They are not going to do it because that would be malpractice and insane.
Tell me how this is any different. I have asked my colleagues to cite their sources many times, but no one has. I have cited all of them.
This is about very simple common sense. The vast majority of Americans agree that these treatments shouldn't even be done on minors.
Mr. Speaker, let me remind everyone that this bill doesn't even go that far. It simply says that your tax dollars won't allow this to be done on minors, just your Medicaid tax dollars. That is all it does.
To not vote for this is to truly vote against their own constituents, truly vote against the American people's wishes, and vote against common sense.
The science is settled on this. There is no benefit to what they are claiming. I don't know why they keep fighting this battle. It is a losing battle. I hope many of them will change their minds and come across the aisle to vote for this bill.
This really doesn't have to be a partisan issue at all. It should be an issue of common sense, science, and true compassion for children.
