Democratic Senators balked at the idea of opposing a bill authored by Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to criminalize providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth.
The bill is part of a larger sweep of anti-trans initiatives by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.
Republicans initially included an amendment in the One Big, Beautiful Bill that would ban Medicaid dollars from covering gender-affirming care, which ultimately didn’t pass. In addition, the annual National Defense Authorization Act that passed this week included a provision that prohibits transgender athletes from competing in sports designated for women and girls at the United States Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy.
But Democrats didn’t commit to opposing it.
“I haven’t seen it,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told The Independent. When asked a follow-up question, he said again that he hadn’t seen it.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said he hadn’t seen the progress on the bill, but believed it would fail.
“I’m not tracking it, but probably,” Schatz, a member of Democratic leadership, told The Independent.
On Wednesday, the House passed Greene’s Protect Children’s Innocence Act. The bill would criminalize performing or attempting to perform medical procedures to change a minor’s body to correspond with a sex other than their biological one. Violators face either a fine, prison for up to ten years or both.
The bill passed 213-207.
Three Democrats voted for the bill: Reps. Don Davis of North Carolina, Henry Cuellar of Texas and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas. President Donald Trump won all three of their districts.
Four Republicans voted against it: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Mike Lawler of New York, Gabe Evans of Colorado and Mike Kennedy of Utah.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who voted against the defense act, told The Independent “I have to see what's happened in the house”
Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, Greene’s fellow Georgian, said he would oppose it.
“I intend to vote against it,” he told The Independent.
While Republicans have a 53 seats in the Senate, they would need seven Democratic senators to join them to prevent a filibuster.
But that’s not the only anti-trans bill being debated in Congress at the moment.
On Thursday, right before House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the House, it also voted for legislation by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) that would prohibit Medicaid dollars from paying for gender transition surgeries for anyone younger than 18 years old. Republicans tried to include it in their “One, Big Beautiful Bill” that Trump signed, but the Senate parliamentarian rejected it.
Every Republican voted for the legislation while the three Democrats who voted for Greene’s bill supported this one as well. In addition, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) also voted for the bill. Gluesenkamp Perez is the co-chairwoman of the Blue Dogs, a group of centrist Democrats, and her district also voted for Trump.
On Thursday, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced a series of rules that would cut off Medicaid and Medicare dollars that go from being spent of gender-affirming care for minors. It would also cut off federal dollars for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
The American Academy of Pediatrics criticized the Department’s effort in a statement.
“These rules are a baseless intrusion into the patient-physician relationship,” AAP President Susan J. Kressly said in a statment. “Patients, their families, and their physicians — not politicians or government officials — should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them. The government’s actions today make that task harder, if not impossible, for families of gender-diverse and transgender youth.”
The legislation will likely be Greene’s last legislative effort.
She will resign her seat at the beginning of next month after her falling out with Trump over releasing files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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