Marjorie Taylor Greene lies while testifying in the House about her anti-trans “signature bill”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) testified in the House earlier today about her bill to ban trans minors from accessing gender-affirming care, and she lied in order to promote it.

“There is also a growing movement, all across America, called detransition,” she told the House Judiciary Committee at its Member Day hearing today. “These are many young people that made the tragic mistakes of having mastectomies, having castrations done to them, having genital mutilation surgeries when they were still in their early, uh, teens, um, maybe even before they were teenagers.”

Related:

Sen. JD Vance & Marjorie Taylor Greene are trying to ban gender-affirming care at federal level

Vance introduced a Senate companion bill to Greene’s extreme anti-trans bill.

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That is not true. Genital gender-affirming surgery is not performed on minors in the U.S., much less on prepubescent children. Some older teens can sometimes get mastectomies if they meet stringent requirements, but that’s rare.

Gender-affirming care for pre-pubescent children involves allowing them to wear the kinds of clothes that they want, calling them by a name and pronouns that affirm their gender identities, and generally supporting their self-expression. Puberty blockers – which have been shown to reduce lifelong suicide risk among trans people – are prescribed after the onset of puberty, and hormone replacement therapy is an option for some trans teens who are a bit older.

Gender-affirming care for trans minors is supported by the American Medical Association (AMA), the Endocrine Society, and other leading medical organizations. The AMA issued a resolution earlier this year reaffirming their support for gender-affirming care based on scientific evidence.

The idea that five-year-olds are getting genital surgery to transition is a common lie among anti-LGBTQ+ activists, mainly because it is more shocking than reality. If Greene had told the truth and said that some young adults were getting surgery that she doesn’t personally approve of — and that her bill would affect trans teens getting puberty blockers — it would have been harder for her to get people on her side. And since most people know very little about trans people and gender-affirming care, Greene and others like her can gain massive support through lying.

Moreover, despite what Greene said, detransition is rare. According to a study this year from UCLA’s Williams Institute, 1.3 million adults in the U.S. identify as transgender, or 0.05 % of the population. Of those who transition, about 8% report detransitioning, according to a 2015 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, and most – 62% – of that 8% said their detransition was temporary. A 50-year survey in Sweden revealed that only about 2% of the trans population regretted undergoing gender-affirming surgery.

According to a National Institutes of Health study, the most common reason for detransition was external factors like family pressure and social stigma against transgender people, not regret, as Greene said. And many famous detransitioners have later come out again as transgender.

Greene’s Protect Children’s Innocence Act — which she called her “signature bill” — would make it a Class C felony to provide gender-affirming care to transgender minors, make it more difficult for transgender adults to access gender-affirming care by banning some health care programs from covering it, and ban medical schools from teaching about gender-affirming care.

Greene introduced her bill earlier this year, but it has languished in the House Judiciary Committee. Last month, she complained that House Republicans weren’t doing more to pass it and said that it was one of her top issues when it came to voting for a new speaker of the House.

Even if the bill were to pass the House, the Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely to pass it and President Joe Biden is unlikely to sign it into law. He has made his position on gender-affirming care clear in his first term in office: That it is a decision to be made by patients with help from their families and doctors, not the government.

Member Day hearings in the House allow congress members to testify to committees that they are not necessarily a part of about bills and other topics in the committee’s jurisdiction. Often, this is used as an opportunity to lobby for federal projects in their district. Greene’s testimony does not necessarily mean that the Judiciary Committee is moving forward with her bill.