The vote was narrow, 216-211, with four Republicans voting with Democrats to oppose it, and three Democrats joining Republican to vote for it.
The bill criminalizes the controversial gender transition procedures that are referred to as “gender-affirming care” by transgender activists and their allies.
The measure was sponsored by a controversial Republican lawmaker, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is resigning from office in a few weeks after she became a political enemy of President Trump.
The measure now heads to the Senate where its survival is uncertain without votes from Democrats.
The bill’s passage was praised this week by Chloe Cole, a female who underwent a double mastectomy and hormone injections when she lived as a boy. Now age 21, Cole detransitioned as a teenager and has since become a vocal opponent of the medical community that she says convinced her and her parents to permanently change her body.
Cole spoke Thursday at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (pictured below) because the federal agency is vowing to defund hospitals that provide gender transition procedures.
President Trump, back in January, signed an executive order that ordered HHS to protect children from “chemical and surgical mutilation.”
“Every boy and every girl,” Cole said, “deserves to be loved the way that they were beautifully created in their mother’s womb.”
Cole also addressed the issue of mental illness, which she says she struggled with, but which LGBTQ activists rarely address and even vilify as a hateful topic and “transphobic.”
“To the young people out there, who are struggling with this mental illness, I want you to know that there is a better way out,” Cole said. “It’s not too late to accept the beautiful way that God has created you.”
The issue of feeling born in the wrong body, which Cole struggled with as a pre-teen, was recognized as Gender Identity Disorder by the American Psychological Association before the APA caved, under pressure, and began using the vague term “gender dysphoria” instead.
Christian activist Steve McConkey, whose ministry 4 WINDS opposes transgender athletes, told AFN he will be surprised if the measure fails in the Senate. If it doesn’t pass, he added, the fight must continue.
“We gotta keep the battle going. We gotta keep at it,” he said. “People have a short memory about what Biden did and what was going on. It was an uphill battle."
