U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a medical doctor and staunch ally of President-elect Donald Trump, put forward a bill last week to ban transgender surgeries or drugs for minors.
“Americans resoundingly rejected the Left’s dangerous transgender agenda. Let’s call it exactly what it is: child abuse. The days of demented doctors and activists getting rich off of mutilating, sterilizing, and castrating children are over,” said Sen. Marshall on X.
Marshall’s bill, were it to become law, would directly conflict with several key policies implemented by Maine Democrats under Gov. Janet Mills (D), including allowing transgender procedures for 16- and 17-year-olds without parental consent or knowledge.
The bill would impose a blanket ban on any transgender surgeries or medications, such as puberty blockers intended to prevent normal sexual development, or cross-sex hormones meant to make someone develop certain characteristics of the opposite sex.
The bill would establish a minimum civil fine of $100,000 for anyone caught violating the federal prohibition.
The penalty will apply broadly to anyone who tries to perform, or conspires to perform, surgeries or prescribe the drugs, and anyone who even issues referrals.
Employers of anyone violating the prohibition in their official capacity will also face civil penalties.
The minor victims would be exempt from penalties.
Childhood victims of transgender surgeries, or their parents or guardians, will have the right to take private legal action against the providers of the procedures.
Marshall’s bill also cracks down on transgender trafficking, the practice of minors traveling or being taken from states with more restrictive laws to states with legal protections for doctors performing sex-change surgeries on children.
Earlier this year, Gov. Mills signed a controversial bill into law that granted legal protections to anyone bringing a child into Maine for sex-change operations or drugs.
Anyone suffering from a genuine physical medical problem requiring treatment with drugs or procedures, often associated with transgender medicine, would still be able to access that care.
For example, many of the hormone inhibitors associated with transgender treatments for minors were originally developed as prostate cancer treatments for adults, and those applications would still be allowed under Marshall’s proposal.
That exemption extends to the small number of intersex people, those born with sexual traits of both sexes, a group often cited by transgender activists as evidence for their belief that sex is not binary.
In addition to preventing future harm to children at the hands of radical gender ideology, Marshall sought in his bill to provide aid to those who have already fallen victim.
The bill would establish a new federal grant program to aid the victims of transgender procedures seeking to undo some of the harm done to them.
Any non-profits helping victims to detransition would be eligible for the grant.
In addition to being one of the more conservative members of the Senate, Marshall has an extensive background in medicine, particularly in obstetrics and gynecology. After earning his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Kansas, he completed a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, Florida, and his campaign website claims he’s helped deliver more than 5,000 babies.
Marshall’s bill appears in line with President Trump’s past promise to stop transgender procedures for minors and punish the physicians responsible for performing them.
The bill, certain not to pass under the current administration with a Democratic president and a Democratic-controlled Senate, has a chance of success under the upcoming second Trump administration if Republicans rally behind it in a future Republican-led Senate.
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