SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – Senator Mike Lee has introduced a bill prohibiting the use of federal funding for gender transition research on minors.

The announcement on Protecting Our Kids from Harmful Research Act claims medical interventions to transition gender are experimental, irreversible, and often fail to produce the intended effects of improving patients’ mental health. 

The bill further states, “A growing number of well respected medical groups in the United States and abroad, including the American College of Pediatricians, the Royal College of General Practitioners in the United Kingdom, and the Swedish National Council for Medical Ethics have denounced these so-called treatments as experimental and dangerous.”

Lee is hoping to prohibit federal funding from being used in research or publications that seek to establish or affirm gender identities different from a minor’s biological sex.

The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Lee who is joined by Sens. James Lankford(R-OH), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Steve Daines (R-MT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Braun (R-IN), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Marco Rubio (R-FL).

There are several organizations that have joined in to endorse the bill. Heritage Action, American Principles Project, and Students for Life.

“Students for Life Action will always stand for children, born and preborn, protecting them from the harmful abortion industry and their new moneymaker, sterilizing drugs and surgeries,” said Kristan Hawkins, Pres. Of Students for Life. “The sterilization and abortion industry doesn’t care what happens to children, as long as they never hold a child of their own. The Protecting Our Kids from Harmful Research Act would protect children from this growing industry that is anti-child and anti-life. Students for Life Action stands with Senator Lee and the Protecting Our Kids from Harmful Research Act.”