# What This Bill Actually Does

This bill creates a new legal right for people to sue doctors who perform gender transition procedures on minors. Specifically, if someone receives puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, or gender-related surgery before age 18, they could later sue the doctor who performed the procedure—claiming they were harmed physically, emotionally, or psychologically. They'd have until 30 years after turning 18 to file this lawsuit, and if they win, they could receive money damages, punitive damages (extra money meant to punish the doctor), and attorney's fees. The bill also says doctors cannot be forced by federal law to perform these procedures if they don't want to.

The bill includes an important exception: it doesn't apply to people born with ambiguous sex characteristics or certain chromosomal conditions, nor does it prevent doctors from treating infections or injuries that result from previous procedures. It also wouldn't prevent emergency medical care needed to prevent death or serious bodily harm.

Additionally, the bill would cut off federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services to any state that requires doctors to perform gender transition procedures on minors. In practical terms, this means states that mandate such procedures could lose federal healthcare dollars. The bill is written broadly to give federal courts jurisdiction over these cases by requiring that some connection to interstate commerce exist—such as the doctor or patient traveling across state lines, using the internet, or even just using medical equipment that crossed state lines.

This legislation is highly controversial. Supporters argue it protects children from medical decisions they might later regret, while opponents contend it restricts access to medical care that major medical organizations say can be appropriate and beneficial for some transgender youth, and that it could discourage doctors from providing any care to transgender minors out of fear of lawsuits.

Protect Minors from Medical Malpractice Act of 2023

Banks, Jim

Protect Minors from Medical Malpractice Act of 2023 This bill makes a medical practitioner who performs a gender-transition procedure on an individual who is less than 18 years of age liable for any physical, psychological, emotional, or physiological harms from the procedure for 30 years after the individual turns 18. Additionally, if a state requires medical practitioners to perform gender-transition procedures, that state shall be ineligible for federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services. Gender-transition procedures generally include certain surgeries or hormone therapies that change the body of an individual to correspond to a sex that is discordant with the individual's biological sex. They exclude, however, interventions to treat (1) individuals who either have ambiguous external biological sex characteristics or lack a normal sex chromosome structure, sex steroid hormone production, or sex steroid hormone action; (2) infections, injuries, diseases, or disorders caused by a gender-transition procedure; or (3) a physical disorder, injury, or illness that places an individual in imminent danger of death or impairment of a major bodily function.