Elaine Kutas | June 4, 2026
(The Lion) — The U.S. Senate held a committee hearing Wednesday on the debate over transgender treatments for minors.
The hearing – titled “Protecting Our Children: Exposing the Dangers of Irreversible Gender Transition Procedures on Minors” – was held by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. It discussed federal policies, state-level bans and ethics of so-called “gender-affirming care.”
Witnesses Kurt Miceli, MD, and Chloe Cole spoke out against the danger of transgender ideology and continued misinformation about surgeries and the abuse that children experience from these treatments. Cole, a de-transitioner and advocate, shared her story in hopes the bill would successfully pass and protect children from what she suffered.
“I do not think that children have the developmental capacity or worldly experience to make decisions like this that are very adult in nature,” Cole said. “No child can consent to being sterilized.”
Miceli, the chief medical officer for Do No Harm, provided medical expertise into the background of gender-altering treatments, insisting gender transition procedures for minors must stop.
“No responsible field of medicine would continue to promote interventions where the harms are well-established, and the benefits remain unproven,” Miceli said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, the chairman of HELP, “emphatically reject[ed]” the idea that the bill is political or about liking or disliking a group of people. Rather it is about protecting children.
When asked by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, about the uptick in transitions, Cole and Miceli both said social media plays a major part in children’s exposure to gender ideology.
Cassidy ended the hearing thanking Cole for her testimony.
“You are providing a great service to this country and to children.”
This article was made available to EdNews Virginia via The Lion, a publication of the Herzog Foundation.