Congress restricts gender-affirming care for minors, expands liability for providers

What it does

This bill prohibits the use of federal funds for gender-affirming medical treatments for minors (puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and gender-affirming surgeries) and creates a private right of action allowing anyone, including taxpayers, to sue the federal government, states, medical institutions, schools, and healthcare providers for violations. It also grants healthcare providers a broad conscience right to refuse participation in such treatments without penalty, and imposes strict parental-consent and informed-consent requirements with extended statutes of limitations (30 years post-majority) for civil suits.

Why we flagged it

The bill's core function is to prohibit federal funding for gender-affirming medical treatments for minors and to create civil liability for violations. While framed as a child-safety measure, the operative mechanism is a funding restriction and liability expansion for a specific category of medical care that is recognized by major medical organizations as evidence-based treatment for gender dysphoria.

What the text implies

• The 30-year statute of limitations for civil suits (Sections 6, 7, 8) creates long-term liability exposure for providers and institutions, potentially chilling provision of care even in states that do not adopt the bill's restrictions and potentially affecting providers' malpractice insurance costs and availability.
• Section 6 conditions federal Medicaid/TANF funding on state policies requiring dual-parental consent and prohibiting separation of minors from parents who refuse consent, which may conflict with existing state child-welfare law and limit state authority to intervene in cases of parental abuse or neglect related to refusal of medical care.
• Section 9's conscience protections for healthcare providers are asymmetrical: they shield refusal to provide gender-affirming care but do not protect providers who do provide it from liability under the bill's expanded malpractice framework, creating a one-directional incentive against provision.
• The bill's definition of 'sex-trait altering treatment' includes puberty blockers, which are reversible interventions, and gender-transition hormone therapy, which is partially reversible, alongside irreversible surgical procedures, treating them as a single category subject to the same restrictions despite different risk profiles.
• Section 5 prohibits federal funding to any medical institution that provides sex-trait altering treatments to minors, potentially affecting hospitals, medical schools, and federally qualified health centers that receive Medicare, Medicaid, or other federal funding, with cascading effects on institutional funding and operations.

Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.

Who it affects

Minors and families lose access to federally-funded gender-affirming medical care and state Medicaid coverage for such treatments. The bill also restricts state autonomy by conditioning federal Medicaid/TANF funds on dual-parental-consent requirements and bars states from separating minors from parents who refuse consent, potentially limiting state child-welfare authority. While the bill frames parental rights and informed consent as protections, the operative effect is to eliminate a category o

Who stands to gain

• Healthcare providers with conscience objections to gender-affirming care (immunity from state mandat
• Medical malpractice insurers (expanded liability exposure increases demand for coverage)

Named in the bill

Department of Health and Human Services, States (Medicaid/TANF funding conditions), Medical institutions (hospitals, medical schools, clinics, FQHCs), Healthcare providers (physicians, nurses, pharmacists, health systems), Schools (elementary and secondary), Health insurance issuers and plans

Where it stands

8 cosponsors: 8 Republicans.

• Mar 26, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
• Mar 26, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Ways and Means and House Committee on Education and Workforce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on the Judiciary…”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $439,908 in lobbying spend. A filing names 132 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.

Robert Onder, the sponsor, reported $454,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.

• Human Rights Campaign — $439,908 on 2 filings

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 17, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.