WASHINGTON – A panel hosted by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and the conservative activist group American Principles Project at the U.S. Capitol last week discussed the negative effects of the burgeoning “sex industrial complex” and emphasized the importance of legislative protections against it.

The panel — which also included Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Sarah Parshall Perry, and former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlan — also emphasized the destructive and irreversible. consequences of sex change treatments on minors.

“This is not about politics”

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Marshall and Tuberville also announced their support for the “STOP Action,” or Safeguarding The Overall Protection of Minors Act, a proposal they said they plan to introduce in the coming weeks that would fine doctors at least $100,000 if they perform sex-change procedures on minors.

“Any doctor who performs a sex change on a child should be put in jail,” Tuberville said. “Period.”

The panel was based on the data that the American Principles Project published in a report earlier this year, providing an in-depth breakdown of the estimated $4.4 billion market for trans hormones and surgeries.

The report also offered an analysis of the costs associated with various drugs and procedures, as well as information on the pharmaceutical companies and medical providers that make the largest financial investments.

When Schilling brought up the leaked files of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health that exposed many scientific and ethical questions about WPATH's standards of care, Marshall suggested that doctors who perform such procedures should be stripped of their licenses.

Marshall, an obstetrician and nondenominational Christian, acknowledged the financial motivation behind those pushing the sex industrial complex, but also noted that he believes there are other forces behind the movement.

“I think there's something probably even deeper that's really bothering me here,” he said. “This is an attack on our values. It goes even deeper than just profit margin and how much money you can make from this.”

“But I think at the end of the day, people who say that God is wrong – that the gender we were given, that God must be wrong about that, and if you just changed your gender, it would solve all your problems.”

Tuberville echoed Marshall, framing the fight over trans issues as spiritual.

“This is not about politics, folks,” said Tuberville, the retired Auburn University head football coach who has represented Alabama in the U.S. Senate starting in 2021. “This is about right and wrong. At the end of the day, they preyed. in the minds of young Americans and misguided parents, confusing them, and that's the goal of the Democrats here.”

Tuberville suggested that the Democratic Party was pitting the sexes against each other, which he claimed was a move that fell into absurdity.

“They want to have gender vs. gender distress,” he said. “It has resulted in boys competing in girls' sports, which is absolutely absurd, and men invading women's locker rooms. I can't believe it.”

'We were the problem'

Scanlan, who had to compete against trans-identified swimmer Lia (Will) Thomas at the University of Pennsylvania, has publicly shared that competitive swimming once helped her overcome a sexual assault she experienced in a bathroom at the age of 16, as noted by the New York Post.

Thomas made headlines after he broke women's swimming records and was an NCAA All-American in the women's division after his stint at the University of Pennsylvania.

During the panel, Scanlan claimed she felt like she had a psychological disorder at school because of her reluctance to undress in a locker room with Thomas, whose male genitalia she noted remained “fully intact.”

“Our university told us that if we were against him being on our team, that we were the problem,” she said. “They sat us down, they said, 'You're hateful and horrible. If you ever speak out against this, you're going to spend the rest of your life regretting it.'

Scanlan claimed that school officials compared the trans issue to “the next civil rights movement” and that their reluctance to undress alongside a biological male was equivalent to not wanting to undress with someone based on their race.

“They said, 'You're going to be on the wrong side of history.' And the last thing they said is, 'If you're still against everything we've said so far, please seek psychological help.' And they gave us the number for an on-campus counselor,” she said.

“And so, this whole situation really made all of us female athletes feel isolated and alone and like we had nowhere to go,” she added.

“Having Children”

Sarah Parshall Perry, who serves as a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said the purpose of the transgender industrial complex is to seek out children.

“The sex industrialized complex, in all its applications, is about one thing, and that is getting children,” she said.

“There are 12 million American high school students who now attend a school where there is an express confidentiality policy that will keep your child's gender identity information from custodial parents, regardless of whether or not those parents claim they have a right to review curriculum.”

Perry noted that she had many conversations with state legislators who were “very bold” in introducing bills to protect women's sports and prevent gender reassignment procedures for minors, but that legislation must come from the federal level.

“We're actually going to see gender identity continue at the Supreme Court, but I'm encouraged today because here we are with federal lawmakers who have decided they're going to say, 'Enough,'” she said.

“It starts here in Washington,” she later added. “As the nation's capital goes, so goes the rest of the country.”

'This will not happen'

Tuberville, although he emphasized the importance of a federal response, noted that even an executive order from President-elect Donald Trump would not be able to survive beyond his presidency, and that lawmakers must enshrine a legislative solution. He also encouraged Americans to get involved politically at the state and local level.

“We have to make a real law that means something, and then we have to go to the state level, and we have to talk to our people at the state level — attorneys general.”

In all of his campaign stops, Tuberville said he's observed that the most important elected position is always the school board.

“Run for school board,” he said. “Get involved, because parents are the ones who will have to make the biggest difference of anyone – parents standing up, saying, 'This is not going to happen'.”