The “Big Beautiful Bill” will accomplish a lot, including reigniting America’s economy and keeping your tax rates low. But perhaps one of the most important things it does may be getting overlooked. It bans the use of taxpayer funds in Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Affordable Care Act for transgender procedures.
Put simply: it protects vulnerable kids and American taxpayers.
For years, we have both led the charge to keep kids safe from radical gender ideology, one of us from Congress and one of us from the trenches of the public square. Rep. Crenshaw authored the Crenshaw Amendment specifically for the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which prohibits taxpayer funding for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change surgeries. And Ms. Cole is herself a victim of radical gender ideology, having tried to transition genders starting at age 12—only to regret it by age 16.
No one knows this fact better than Chloe Cole. Children should never be subjected to this medical assault on their developing body and mind. Encouraged by radicalized medical “professionals,” these transgender procedures are invasive and irreversible, leading to a lifetime of complications and additional health problems. Children, lacking the mental and physical maturity to make life-altering decisions, simply cannot understand the consequences of these procedures—not in the short term and especially not in the long term. True “consent,” as we would normally understand the term, cannot exist under these circumstances.
Chloe Cole speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill on September 20, 2022, about the Protect Children’s Innocence Act. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
This is common sense. First of all, most Americans agree with these simple statements. But the scientific consensus also backs our position. Various systematic reviews of the evidence came to the same scientific conclusions: low quality evidence of any benefits, with immense risks.
And yet, the medical establishment, like so many other parts of society, has been overtaken by activists masquerading as “experts.” They’re putting ideology ahead of ethics, and children across America are paying the price for the leftist activists’ arrogance.
No taxpayer should be forced to cover the cost of these procedures. Doing so makes Americans complicit in the destruction of children’s minds and bodies. When people pay taxes, they assume they’re funding things like national security and the safety net. They don’t think they’re paying for a misguided doctor to cut off the genitalia of a confused child. The only thing taxpayers should cover in that situation is real mental health care.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) talks with reporters outside the U.S. Capitol on April 12, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
To his credit, President Trump has already taken strong steps to protect children and taxpayers from radical gender ideology. He has issued an executive order that prohibits the use of taxpayer funding for sex changes. He has also directed his administration to investigate those who put children at risk. Most recently, the Trump administration released its own sweeping review of the evidence surrounding pediatric transgender procedures. The short version: There’s no real evidence of benefits to children—but there’s reams of evidence showing that kids are being irreparably harmed.
These are steps in the right direction, but the “Big Beautiful Bill” is the most important step of all. Until the Crenshaw Amendment and further restrictions are written into federal law, a future president can simply undo the protections that President Trump has put in place. Congress must do its part to make this permanent.
This isn’t some fringe issue, by the way. The medical nonprofit Do No Harm has found that 14,000 kids between 2019 and 2023 alone have already been subjected to dangerous transgender procedures, many of them using taxpayer funds. With a federal law in place, taxpayers and parents can rest easier.
Know this: we are winning, but the fight isn’t over. The Crenshaw Amendment is a giant leap forward, and this is our chance to pass it and do what is right for our children.
Dan Crenshaw represents Texas’s 2nd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. Chloe Cole is the patient advocate at Do No Harm.
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