Federal bill creates 25-year retroactive liability for doctors who provided gender care.
S. 2907 — Chloe Cole Act · Filed by Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) · 12 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 18, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill prohibits health care professionals, hospitals, and clinics from providing puberty blockers, sex hormones, or gender-affirming surgeries to minors under 18, defining these treatments as 'chemical or surgical mutilation.' It creates a federal private right of action allowing individuals and their parents to sue providers for damages—including compensatory, non-economic, and punitive damages—for any such treatment provided to a child, with a 25-year statute of limitations. The bill applies retroactively to treatments provided before enactment and shifts the burden of proof to providers to demonstrate that treatments fall within narrow medical exceptions (intersex conditions, trauma, infection treatment, or detransition care).
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a federal prohibition on gender-affirming medical treatments for minors, enforced through a private right of action with strict liability and retroactive application. While framed as protecting children from 'mutilation,' the mechanism is a liability shield for plaintiffs and a liability expansion for providers, creating financial and legal exposure for past clinical decisions.
What the text implies
- Retroactive liability (section 4) exposes providers to lawsuits for treatments provided before enactment, potentially decades after care was delivered under then-prevailing standards of care. This creates open-ended litigation risk and may incentivize settlement even in defensible cases.
- The 'clear and convincing evidence' standard for exceptions (section 3) and affirmative defenses (section 4) reverses normal burden of proof, requiring providers to prove medical necessity rather than plaintiffs proving harm—a significant evidentiary advantage to claimants.
The full analysis lists 5 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
plaintiff's personal injury attorneys; litigation finance firms; medical malpractice insurers (through increased premiums and claims)