FIRST ON FOX: Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., is out with a new bill aimed at preventing child welfare agencies from denying prospective adopters who say they will raise kids in a manner consistent with the minor’s biological sex.
‘The Biden administration is cruelly preventing countless children in the foster care and adoption system from going to loving homes just because parents are opposed to irreversible sex change procedures on kids,’ Banks told Fox News Digital.
‘This isn’t a liberal or conservative issue. This is just plain wrong, and every sane person knows it.’
It comes after the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new rule aimed at ensuring minors are placed in homes accepting of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The rule ‘would require that child welfare agencies ensure that each child in their care who identifies as LGBTQI+ receive a safe and appropriate placement and services that help them thrive.’
‘The proposed rule would protect LGBTQI+ youth by placing them in environments free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the child’s LGBTQI+ status. And the proposed rule would require that caregivers for LGBTQI+ children are properly and fully trained to provide for the needs of the child related to the child’s self-identified sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression,’ the HHS website stated.
Banks’ bill, the Sensible Adoption for Every (SAFE) Home Act, would prevent child welfare agencies and related groups that receive federal funding from getting those funds if they refuse prospective parents who insist against the child’s stated LGBTQ status.
That includes prospective parents who say they will refuse a child’s desire for medical, surgical, pharmacological and psychological treatment if it is inconsistent with their biological sex.
Several states have already passed bills banning doctors from performing gender-affirming surgery on transgender youth.
Banks himself led a House bill earlier this year that would have allowed people who received transgender surgeries as minors to sue the medical practitioner responsible.