Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) recently reintroduced a bill—the so-called Protect Children’s Innocence Act of 2025, which the House Judiciary Committee has already approved—that would criminalize gender-affirming care for minors.

The bill’s wording conflates this care—which includes interventions like hormone therapy, puberty blockers, gender-affirming surgeries, voice therapy and mental health support with an experienced provider—with female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), deceptively coopting the language of the movement to ban FGM/C, such as that from the STOP FGM Act of 2020 signed by President Trump.

Greene’s bill and her rhetoric promoting it describe both FGM/C (a widespread issue in the U.S.) and gender-affirming surgery as “mutilation.” This false equivalence is grossly disingenuous, dangerous and extreme. It’s a transphobic ploy to stoke fear and score political points, all while dehumanizing trans people.

The U.S. Supreme Court has already upheld a similar Tennessee law prohibiting gender-affirming treatment for transgender minors. Now, Congress must to stand up against this flagrant effort to violate the rights of transgender youth to medically necessary care under federal law.

To be clear, FGM/C and gender-affirming care are not the same—not even close.

FGM/C is non-consensual, often performed on women and girls by force and without medical oversight. It is a harmful practice that aims to control sexuality and enforce negative gender norms. FGM/C is recognized globally as a human rights violation, condemned by the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

By contrast, gender-affirming care is an evidence-based practice affirmed by major medical associations in the United States. It is always consensual. Denying it to people who need it violates their rights.

Gender-affirming care is highly individualized. It is thoroughly discussed with every patient, considering factors such as patients’ age, their understanding of gender and sexuality, familial support and other effective psychosocial interventions.

Gender-affirming care, including pediatric transition-related healthcare, greatly improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender-diverse adolescents and can often be lifesaving for them.

For example, a Seattle Children’s Gender Clinic study found that access to hormones and puberty blockers for young people ages 13 to 20 was associated with 60 percent lower odds of depression and 73 percent lower odds of self-harm. The Utah Department of Health and Human Services (where gender-affirming care for minors is banned) published a medical review on gender-affirming care, which included evidence that it can positively impact adolescent well-being.

The research is clear: There is no scientific justification for banning gender-affirming care. If anything, the care is often greatly beneficial and essential. Its enemies, therefore, rely on misinformation and harmful rhetoric to disprove it.

By equating gender-affirming care to FGM/C, Greene seeks to exploit and weaponize the suffering of women and girls affected by FGM/C and put transgender and nonbinary minors at risk.

At the same time, by politicizing and misrepresenting the issue, Greene’s tactic also undermines efforts to protect survivors and those at risk of FGM/C. Individuals threatened by FGM/C need survivor-led, research-based solutions inclusive of the LGBTQIA+ community, not distorted rhetoric pitting different groups, who are all fighting for the same right to bodily autonomy, against each other.

It is crucial to condemn FGM/C as a violation of bodily autonomy and to support gender-affirming care as an expression of it. The two imperatives are united by one fundamental principle: People have the right to make informed decisions about their bodies. Doctors and other medical professionals also have the right to provide adequate, medically necessary treatment for their patients.

Ultimately, we need Congress to uphold these rights by roundly rejecting Greene’s bill.