Intent; authority

(a) Intent It is the intent of Congress— (1) to reaffirm and protect the fundamental right of parents to direct the care, upbringing, education, and welfare of their children, including the right to raise, care for, treat, and refer to them in a manner consistent with the child’s sex; (2) to stop the weaponization of the child welfare system against parents who affirm their child’s sex or decline to consent to sex-rejecting interventions; (3) to deter violations of parental rights by State actors, nonprofit entities or other entities and persons exercising State-delegated authority over child custody, placement, or care; (4) to protect children in foster care, residential placements, and other out-of-home settings from being subjected to sex-rejecting interventions or endangered by failure to provide sex-separated sleeping, toileting, bathing, and other facilities in which a child may be in a state of undress; (5) to provide clear notice and training of constitutional obligations within child welfare systems; (6) to ensure that Federal funds are not used by States or by private State-designated or State-funded entities to violate the fundamental rights of parents or to enforce or further the provision of sex-rejecting interventions to minors; (7) to ensure that professional training, clinical protocols, and administrative guidance funded with Federal monies do not characterize parental affirmation of a child’s sex as child abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, or evidence of parental unfitness or incapacity; (8) to ensure that Federal funds are spent in accordance with evidence-based practices that support child safety, family preservation, and child well-being, and not on programs, trainings, or protocols that promote sex-rejecting interventions for children or that treat parental affirmation of a child’s sex as harmful to the child; (9) to ensure that children in State care are housed on the basis of their immutable sex; (10) to provide parents, legal guardians, caregivers, and children with access to meaningful and timely judicial relief when rights recognized and established by this Act, including the amendments made by this Act, are infringed through the express provision of a right of action; (11) to affirm that referring to the child by pronouns or titles consistent with the child’s sex, declining to consent to puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones, and declining to facilitate social, medical, or surgical sex-rejecting interventions do not constitute child abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, or maltreatment under Federal law; and (12) to preserve the integrity of interstate custody proceedings and prohibit courts of another State from assuming jurisdiction over child custody or visitation on the basis of a parent’s or child’s desire to obtain sex-rejecting interventions. (b) Authority This Act is enacted pursuant to the following authorities of Congress: (1) Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, to enforce the guarantees of due process and equal protection for fundamental rights, specifically the fundamental parental right to custody and care of their child and to direct the upbringing, care, and control of their child. (2) The Spending Clause under section 8 of article I of the Constitution of the United States, by which Congress may condition the receipt of Federal funds on States’ agreement to comply with specific requirements related to the purposes of the funded programs (South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987)). The conditions established by this Act, including the amendments made by this Act relate to the Federal interest in child welfare, child safety, family preservation, and the protection of parental rights. (3) The Full Faith and Credit Clause of section 1 of article IV of the Constitution of the United States, which grants Congress the power to prescribe the manner in which full faith and credit shall be given to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of each State. (4) The Commerce Clause of section 8 of article I of the Constitution of the United States, to the extent that the activities regulated substantially affect interstate commerce, including the interstate movement of children across State lines in the context of custody proceedings, foster care placements, and the administration of federally funded child welfare programs.