Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill which would codify the Trump administration’s executive order prohibiting “gender-affirming care” for persons under 19. HR 5483, also known as the Chloe Cole Act, was introduced by Rep. Bob Onder of Missouri and co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho before being referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The bill would also create a private right of action allowing patients and their parents to seek redress if harmed by pediatric medical transition procedures. "The Left's dangerous gender ideology has permanently harmed vulnerable children across America,” Rep. Simpson said. “The fight does not stop here – that's why Congress must act quickly to enact legislation to protect our children from these harmful procedures.”
On Monday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law which requires trans-identified Texas residents to use facilities and restrooms that align with their sex, rather than their “gender identity,” in government owned buildings. This includes public schools and universities. The law also requires Texas inmates to be housed in correctional facilities consistent with their sex. Entities who violate the law are subject to a $25,000 fine for first offenses and $125,000 fines for subsequent offenses. The law is set to take effect on December 4th.
According to Bloomberg News, the Justice Department has scrapped plans to transfer criminal prosecutors handling “affirming care” probes from its civil division to its criminal division. “The Civil Division is retaining the gender affirming care investigations because the Attorney General directed the division to handle these cases, and they are part of the Civil Division’s enforcement priorities” a Senior Department of Justice official said in a press release. However, the civil division’s new “enforcement and affirmative litigation branch” will share authority with the criminal division “to investigate and prosecute criminal violations of the Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act, the Consumer Product Safety Act, and other healthcare related statutes.”
National Review describes the origins of the Trump Administration’s specialized task force handling Title IX complaints. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex” in any federally funded education program. Under the Biden administration, however, a notice of interpretation was issued that expanded the definition of “sex” to include “gender identity” under Title IX, followed by a formal Title IX rule change in 2024. The Trump administration’s specialized task force has several ongoing investigations, including investigations into the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Minnestota’s Department of Education. “The hope among senior Education Department officials is that, by the time the second Trump administration concludes, there will be a permanent recognition of what Title IX stands for and a slew of high-profile enforcement actions to show for it” National Review writes.
In response to a letter threatening to withhold federal funds from New York City public schools over NYC school guidance that privileges “gender identity” over sex, Mayor Eric Adams muses about looking into his authority to alter the guidance to conform with the Trump administration’s Title IX policies. NYC’s Department of Education guidelines assert that “Students must be provided access to facilities consistent with their gender identity asserted at school” which violates the administration’s Title IX policies. “I’m not quite sure why people think it’s all right for a young man in high school to go into a shower where young girls are. I mean, that just doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s not safe” Adams told reporters earlier this week. In contrast, mayoral front runner Zohran Mamdani referred to Adams’ comments as “dangerous” and “transphobic.” With New York State’s Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) and the addition of “gender identity” protections to the state constitution last year under the so-called Equal Rights Amendment, Adams faces an uphill climb.
Several trans-identified youths and their families have filed a discrimination complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission over UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh’s decision to halt medical transition procedures for persons under 19. The complaint argues that the hospital’s policy discriminates on the basis of “sex” and diagnosis. The complaint seeks to have “affirming care” for minors reinstated, and if the hospital refuses to act within a year, attorneys for the families have implied filing a lawsuit. The logic of the complaint, however, clashes with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Skrmetti, which determined that barring minors of both sexes from accessing medical transition procedures for the treatment of dysphoria neither discriminates based on sex nor transgender status. While the diagnosis claim is interesting, just because a particular treatment is appropriate in one context does not mean it is appropriate in every context. This framing ignores therapeutic purpose and clinical rationale.
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court for its blessing to enforce its passport policy requiring trans-identified applicants to list the sex on their birth certificate. “Private citizens cannot force the government to use inaccurate sex designations on identification documents that fail to reflect the person’s biological sex — especially not on identification documents that are government property and an exercise of the President’s constitutional and statutory power to communicate with foreign governments” lawyers for the administration argued in a filing. The administration’s EO targeting “gender ideology extremism” instructs the State Department to issue passports based on “immutable biological classification,” however, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked enforcement of the order, and the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling, catalyzing the administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court.
Europe’s LGB Alliance has announced the creation of a new international arm, LGB International, which self-consciously distances itself from the “legacy gay organizations which now focus entirely on transgender issues.” LGB International is a coalition of LGB groups worldwide whose mission is to reprioritize gay rights over transgender issue priorities. “We are launching this because the organizations that once represented gay people are now entirely devoted to ‘gender identity ideology’” said Frederick Schminke, the chair of LGB International. The group aims to make inroads in the countries where homosexuality remains illegal, and places where same-sex partnerships are not recognized in law.
Joseph Figliolia
Policy Analyst
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