H.R. 3688: Protecting Children from Experimentation Act of 2025

HR3688, the Protecting Children from Experimentation Act of 2025, would add a new section 2260B to chapter 110 of title 18 of the U.S. Code. Its core rule is broad: any physical or mental health care professional would be barred from knowingly performing or aiding and abetting a “gender transition procedure” on a “minor,” defined as anyone under age 18. If convicted, a provider could be fined under title 18, imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both.

The bill uses an expansive definition of “gender transition procedure.” It covers hormonal or surgical interventions done for gender transition and lists 33 categories, including GnRH agonists and other puberty blockers, testosterone, estrogen, or progesterone at supraphysiologic doses, mastectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, orchiectomy, vaginoplasty, phalloplasty, metoidioplasty, sterilization, augmentation mammoplasty, chest implants, liposuction, voice surgery, hair reconstruction, and even removal of healthy or non-diseased body parts. It defines “gender transition” as moving from identifying with or presenting as one’s sex to a self-proclaimed identity that does not correspond with that sex, and defines “sex” as male or female “as biologically determined.”

The federal reach is also broad. The ban applies if almost any interstate-commerce connection exists: if the provider or the minor traveled in interstate or foreign commerce, if a phone, computer, mail, wire, or electromagnetic transmission was used, if payment used or affected interstate or foreign commerce, if an instrument or substance used in the conduct traveled across state lines, or if the conduct occurred in U.S. territorial or special maritime jurisdiction. In practice, that means many routine medical arrangements could trigger federal jurisdiction.

The bill does carve out several exceptions, but they are narrow and highly specific. Exempted care includes treatment for medically verifiable disorders of sex development, including examples such as 46 XX with virilization, 46 XY with undervirilization, or the presence of both ovarian and testicular tissue; care backed by genetic or biochemical testing showing abnormal sex chromosome structure or sex steroid hormone production or action; treatment for infection, injury, disease, or disorder caused or worsened by a prior gender transition procedure; physician-certified emergency treatment for an imminent danger of death or impairment of a major bodily function; puberty blockers used to normalize puberty in precocious puberty; and male circumcision. The person who underwent the procedure cannot be arrested or prosecuted, and that person may bring a civil action for appropriate relief against the provider who performed it.