McBride says Republicans are ‘obsessed with trans people’ as bills restricting youth access to gender care come to a vote
By Michael Williams, CNN
(CNN) — Rep. Sarah McBride on Wednesday criticized congressional Republicans as being “obsessed with trans people” ahead of a vote on bills that would restrict youth access to gender identity care and penalize health workers who provide it.
“I actually think they think more about trans people than trans people think about trans people,” said McBride, who is the first out transgender member of Congress.
“They are consumed with this, and they are extreme on it,” the Delaware Democrat added.
Since President Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term, he has made restricting access to health care for trans people and diminishing their existence a priority.
The president has ordered trans people to be removed from the military, excised any mention of them from federal websites, removed them from hate crime surveys and worked to restrict their access to youth sports.
Despite the outsized attention placed on trans people by the administration, they only represent around 0.6% of the US population aged 13 and older, according to the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA Law that provides scientific research on gender identity and sexual orientation.
One of the new GOP bills, spearheaded by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, would amend current law to make it a felony for health care providers to offer forms of gender identity care to transgender youth, including hormone therapy and puberty blockers.
The bill would also open the door for criminal penalties to people who help facilitate that care for minors, including parents or guardians.
The bill is the culmination of a yearslong effort on the part of Greene, a Georgia Republican, to restrict youth access to such care. Trump, with whom Greene has recently fallen out, made anti-transgender policies a central platform of his successful presidential campaign.
Civil rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union described Greene’s bill as “the most extreme anti-trans legislation ever considered by Congress.”
A second bill, sponsored by GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, prohibits federal Medicaid funding for “gender transition procedures for minors.”
McBride said Wednesday that Republicans were “trying to politicize a misunderstood community and misunderstood care.”
“No one’s healthcare should be politicized,” she said
CNN’s Alison Main contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
