Protect Children’s Innocence Act

Protect Children's Innocence Act

This bill places restrictions on the provision of gender affirming care. Gender affirming care includes performing surgery, administering medication, or performing other procedures for the purpose of changing the body of an individual to correspond to a sex that differs from the individual's biological sex.

Specifically, the bill makes it a felony to perform any gender affirming care on a minor and it permits a minor on whom such care is performed to bring a civil action against each individual who provided the care.

Additionally, the bill prohibits the use of federal funds for gender affirming care or for health insurance that covers such care. Such care may not be provided in a federal health care facility or by a federal employee. The bill also prohibits qualified health plans from including coverage for gender affirming care. Further, plans that include coverage for such care are not eligible for federal subsidies.

Finally, the bill prohibits institutions of higher education from offering instruction in gender affirming care. It also makes any non-U.S. national (alien under federal law) who performs gender affirming care on a minor deportable and inadmissible to the United States.

The restrictions under this bill do not apply to the provision of care under certain circumstances such as when an individual does not have normal sex chromosome structure, sex steroid hormone production, or sex steroid hormone action.

Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov