Sponsors (4)
The bill expands legal remedies for people harmed by childhood gender‑transition procedures and protects clinicians' and states' ability to decline to provide such care, but does so with narrow medical definitions, broad liability hooks and funding penalties that are likely to reduce access to gender‑affirming care and produce substantial legal, administrative, and fiscal disruption.
People who underwent gender‑transition procedures as minors (now adults) can sue for compensation up to 30 years after turning 18 and recover attorneys' fees and costs, making legal remedies more accessible.
Clinicians and states are protected from being federally compelled to perform gender‑transition procedures, preserving provider conscience rights and state control over access policies.
The bill provides statutory definitions and narrow medical exceptions that clarify who qualifies as a medical practitioner and explicitly permit urgent life‑saving care and treatment of complications from prior interventions.
Transgender youth, their parents, low‑income and Medicaid‑dependent individuals may face materially reduced access to gender‑affirming care as providers limit services, hospitals or clinics decline procedures, and states lose or restrict programs.
Medical practitioners, insurers, and suppliers face expanded liability exposure (longer statutes of limitations, nationwide jurisdictional hooks, threat of large damages), likely increasing malpractice/insurance costs and deterring providers from offering care.
States that enact mandates to require clinicians to perform gender‑transition procedures risk losing all HHS funding, endangering Medicaid, public‑health grants, community health centers and other services relied on by vulnerable populations.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Introduced January 23, 2025 by Thomas Bryant Cotton · Last progress January 23, 2025
Creates a federal private right of action for people who were under 18 when a medical practitioner performed a defined “gender-transition procedure” on them, allowing long-tail lawsuits for physical, psychological, emotional, or physiological injuries and permitting compensatory and punitive damages plus fees. The law also bars any federal law from being read to require practitioners to perform such procedures and makes states ineligible for HHS funding if the state requires practitioners to perform them. Key definitions narrow which procedures are covered and exclude intersex conditions, treatments for complications, and urgent lifesaving care. The law takes effect on enactment.