House Passes Bill to Ban Gender Transition Treatments for Minors
Legislation that would criminalize gender transition treatments for minors, such as surgery and hormone supply, and punish providers with up to ten years in federal prison was approved by a divided House on Wednesday.
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On a vote of 216 to 211, the bill—which civil rights organizations claimed was among the most extreme anti-trans legislation ever considered by Congress—was approved nearly entirely along party lines.
It is unlikely to be taken up by the Senate, where it would require a bipartisan alliance to move forward. However, the ultraconservative Republican majority and President Trump’s priorities were reflected in its discussion and passage in the House.
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia pushed it through the House after she demanded earlier this month that Speaker Mike Johnson bring her bill to the floor in exchange for her backing of the defense policy measure she was otherwise threatening to sabotage.
According to Greene, the legislation fulfilled one of Trump’s major campaign pledges, and Congress must take action to formalize his executive order banning gender-affirming medical procedures.
“Most Americans agree that kids just need to grow up before they do anything radical, like a mastectomy on a 15-year-old girl,” she said on Wednesday on the House floor, pointing at a poster board of a child who had undergone such a surgery.
Greene has recently gained odd new respect from some Democrats for disagreeing with the president on a number of issues. She abruptly announced last month that she was leaving Congress one year before the end of her term.
“If a child believes they’re a unicorn, do adults take their word for it as well?” Greene said, adding that in electing Trump in 2024, the American people voted to end gender transition treatments.
Republican Representative Barry Moore of Alabama claimed that Democrats were indoctrinating children by falsely framing gender-affirming procedures as necessary.
“It is not lifesaving care,” he said. “It is child abuse.”
In response, Democrats claimed that proponents of the bill were attempting to replace medicine with ideology by focusing on a small and vulnerable group of trans youth. They claimed that by threatening parents with jail time, the law violated their rights and gave politicians the authority to make extremely private decisions for families.
“Does anyone believe that the Freedom Caucus and President Trump love America’s children more than their parents do?” said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland.
California Democratic Rep. Mark Takano said the surgeries on minors that Greene described were extremely rare.
What the bill would really do, he said, is ban “safe and effective medications for an entire group of people.”
Takano said that the bill would not make children safe and that it would “interfere with parental choice and open private medical data up to investigation.”
A second anti-trans bill, also supported by Greene, that would prohibit Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming care for trans youth is scheduled to be voted on by the House later this week.
The first openly transgender lawmaker to serve in Congress, Rep. Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, claimed before Wednesday’s vote that Republicans were “obsessed” with transgender people and were concentrating on a “misunderstood and vulnerable 1 percent of the population” rather than taking any action to safeguard Americans’ health care.
“They think more about trans people than trans people think about trans people,” McBride said, speaking to reporters on the steps of the Capitol. “They are consumed with this and they are extreme on it.”
Three Democrats and four Republicans voted across party lines. Democrats Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, both from Texas, and Don Davis of North Carolina voted for the measure.
Republicans Gabe Evans of Colorado, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Mike Lawler of New York, and Mike Kennedy of Utah voted against it.
DOJ Announces Conviction In Minnesota Meth Ring Linked To Sinaloa Cartel
A fifth individual has been found guilty in a significant meth trafficking conspiracy in Minnesota, which is linked to the infamous Sinaloa Cartel from Mexico, as announced by federal prosecutors on Tuesday.
Eric Anthony Rodriguez, 47, has been convicted in U.S. District Court on charges of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, following a six-day trial presided over by Judge Susan R. Nelson.
Prosecutors have indicated that Rodriguez was involved with the “Diaz-Aguilar Drug Trafficking Organization,” which conducted operations throughout Minnesota from April 2024 to March 2025, Fox News reported.
Prosecutors have reported that the organization was responsible for transporting large quantities of meth, at times reaching hundreds of pounds, into the state. The organization was under the leadership of Erick Emilio Diaz-Aguilar, 33, who had previously entered a guilty plea. He was joined by co-defendants Juan Martin Elvira Jr., 36, Edward Gonzalez, 30, and Bruce Michael Orton, 44.
In a thorough investigation spanning nearly a year, law enforcement successfully confiscated approximately 60 pounds of methamphetamine, 1,500 fentanyl pills, and over $20,000 in cash. Law enforcement officials conducted raids on stash houses located in Columbia Heights, Hastings, and Rochester.
In November 2025, law enforcement officials apprehended Rodriguez during a planned traffic operation, seizing three pounds of methamphetamine from his vehicle. Prosecutors indicated that trial evidence revealed he had received numerous additional pounds intended for distribution.
Federal authorities have reported that the trafficking network is connected to the Sinaloa cartel, a Mexican transnational criminal organization historically associated with significant drug operations in the United States. Rodriguez is scheduled to receive his sentencing at a future date.
This has been a historic month for the DOJ and FBI.
FBI Director Kash Patel highlighted what he described as a record-setting first year at the helm of the bureau during an appearance on Fox News, citing major gains in capturing fugitives from the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.
Patel appeared on “Hannity” after host Sean Hannity noted that the FBI has apprehended six of its Ten Most Wanted fugitives in just one year. Hannity compared this performance to the previous administration’s record of only capturing four fugitives from the list in four years.
Patel said the difference reflects a fundamental change in how the bureau operates.
He said the FBI has placed approximately 1,000 additional agents into the field to focus on violent crime and fugitive apprehension.
The FBI announced the milestone following the January arrest of Ten Most Wanted fugitive Alejandro Rosales Castillo.
Castillo is accused of the 2016 murder of 23-year-old Truc Quan Sandy Ly Le, whose body was found in a wooded area of Cabarrus County, North Carolina.
State charges were filed in Mecklenburg County in November 2016, including first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and larceny of a motor vehicle.
A federal arrest warrant was issued in February 2017 for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
He credited President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and international law enforcement partners for the successful operation.
Patel made headlines in late January when the FBI announced that nearly 50 members and associates of the Latin Kings street gang had been arrested as part of a sweeping, multistate operation aimed at disrupting gang-related crime, drug trafficking, and violence across the United States.
The effort, dubbed “Operation Broken Crown,” involved more than a dozen FBI field offices working with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement partners over three months, the bureau said.
Officials said agents seized more than a dozen firearms, nearly $200,000 in illicit funds, and over 10 kilograms of cocaine, fentanyl, and other narcotics during the opera
tion, which began in October 2025.
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Patel praised the operation’s results and said in a statement that the bureau will continue efforts to dismantle violent gangs and safeguard communities.
“Under President Trump’s and Attorney General Bondi’s leadership, this FBI is dismantling violent gang networks in America at a record clip — breaking their operations and saving lives in the process,” FBI Director Kash Patel said.
