A Republican lawmaker is teaming up with outspoken detransitioner Chloe Cole to push federal legislation that would block gender-related medical procedures for minors, saying that children are being rushed into receiving treatments with life-altering results.
The Chloe Cole Act is being introduced on Monday as federal legislation aimed at protecting minors from gender-related medical procedures.
Rep. Bob Onder, R-Mo., who is behind the bill, has a medical degree and is sounding the alarm over the impact that gender-related treatments can have on minors. The congressman told Fox News Digital that his bill will not only protect minors from these treatments, but will also give children and parents the right to hold medical professionals accountable in court.
"We know that in the last 15 years, the transgender movement has convinced tens of thousands of boys and girls that they are born in the wrong body.... And then a chain of transgender clinics has exploited these kids for the ideology and for the profit and really done permanent damage to the health of those kids with wrong sex hormones, puberty blockers and even mutilating surgeries," Onder told Fox News Digital.
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The congressman said the Chloe Cole Act arises from President Donald Trump's January 2025 order titled, "Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation." The order encouraged lawmakers to "work to draft, propose, and promote legislation to enact a private right of action for children and the parents of children whose healthy body parts have been damaged by medical professionals practicing chemical and surgical mutilation." The order noted that statutes of limitations for these cases should be "lengthy."
Cole, who has become a prominent detransition advocate, told Fox News Digital that the legislation is "a vital step in our mission to ensure that no minor in America ever endures the kind of lasting, irreparable damage I experienced."
"While we’ve made significant strides in raising awareness and enacting protections in recent years, the fight is far from over. Too many children remain at risk of irreversible harm from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures pushed on them before they can fully understand the consequences," Cole said in a statement provided exclusively to Fox News Digital.
"We must finish what we’ve started and safeguard the next generation from these experimental and barbaric treatments," she added.
A recent legal judgment in New York has provided advocates like Cole some hope in holding medical providers accountable. Recently, a jury awarded 22-year-old Fox Varian $2 million in damages after she sued a plastic surgeon who performed a double mastectomy on her when she was a teenager. Varian's lawsuit was also aimed at her psychologist. The New York Times noted that Varian claimed the 2019 double mastectomy left her disfigured. Varian, like Cole, was born female and at one point identified as a man. She is now undergoing the detransition process.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has previously expressed support for providing minors with gender-related medical treatment.
"The AAP and other major medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the World Health Organization — support giving transgender adolescents access to the health care they need," a 2023 statement from the AAP read. "The AAP opposes any laws or regulations that discriminate against transgender and gender-diverse individuals, or that interfere in the doctor-patient relationship."
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Cole celebrated the judgment, and said in a Fox News Digital op-ed: "There are so many other young people like us. We were lied to by doctors, nurses and therapists when we were vulnerable and confused children. They did irreversible harm to our bodies and minds, making a mockery of the medical profession. They should absolutely be held accountable for sacrificing us in service to radical transgender ideology."
In her op-ed, Cole brought up a subject that Onder also touched on during his interview with Fox News Digital: the prevalence of medical professionals warning parents that their child could harm themselves or even commit suicide if they are not allowed to undergo the procedures.
"Those parents are being lied to," Onder said. "The words I hear quoted over and over again, by Chloe, by Luka Hein, by others, is that their parents were told, 'Would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?' implying that the risk of suicide is approaching 100%, but nothing could be further from the truth. That is an utter lie," Onder said.
The congressman lambasted the industry behind gender-related medical procedures, wondering if children were being pushed into the surgeries because of "sick ideology" or a "desire for profit."
"Parents are being lied to, the transgender clinics and the transgender doctors are making off with a lot of money. It's really a despicable development in American medicine. And as a physician, I look forward to the day where it's in our rearview mirror and no longer are kids being exploited," the congressman added.
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