In late February 2026, Bob Onder went on a podcast run by the Family Research Council to promote a bill he had just introduced. The host, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, asked how listeners should pray for him.

Onder's answer, as LGBTQ Nation reported:

"This is as much a spiritual battle as it is a political battle. I and my family have come under spiritual attack so, yes, please have your, your, your viewers, uh, pray to, uh, to guide me and guide my family to- that the hand of God would protect us from the demonic evil that is the transgender cult."

That is a sitting member of Congress describing a group of his own constituents as a demonic evil and a cult, and asking for divine protection from them.

The Family Research Council is designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Onder is a physician. He represents roughly 761,000 Missourians, some of whom are transgender, and some of whom are the parents of transgender kids.

The bill he was promoting

Onder introduced the Chloe Cole Act of 2026 on February 23, 2026, with Rep. Mike Kennedy of Utah. It has 88 cosponsors. On July 15, 2026, the House Judiciary Committee ordered it reported, 15 to 8.

It is not a ban. Missouri already banned this care for minors in 2023 — Senate Bill 49, which the Missouri Supreme Court upheld in January 2026. Onder's bill does something different: it creates a federal lawsuit designed to make providing that care financially unsurvivable anywhere in the country.

Read what's actually in the bill text:

• It is retroactive. A claim can be brought "regardless of whether the alleged covered intervention occurred before, on, or after the date of enactment of this Act." Care that was legal, consented to, and consistent with the standard of care when it was given becomes actionable years later.
• It is strict liability. For care given after enactment, a provider proven to have participated "shall be strictly liable for damages." Not negligent — liable, full stop.
• The doctor has to prove the exceptions. If a physician says the treatment fell under one of the bill's medical carve-outs, the burden is on the physician to prove it "by clear and convincing evidence."
• You cannot sign it away. "No liability for a health care professional under these provisions may be waived." No consent form protects anyone.
• Ties go against the doctor. "Any ambiguities shall be resolved against any party found to have engaged in participation in a covered intervention on a child."
• The medical standard of care gets "limited deference." The bill instructs courts to discount the prevailing standard of care to the extent it "contradict[s] the intent of this Act."
• The window is up to 25 years. A suit can be filed within 25 years of the patient's 18th birthday — so a doctor can be sued when the former patient is 43 — or within four years of any detransition expense, whichever is later.
• Punitive damages are on the table, plus emotional distress, pain and suffering.

And "participate" is drawn wide. It reaches anyone who prescribes, administers, performs, authorizes, directs, or "knowingly plan[s] or coordinat[es]" the care — the supervising physician, the institutional representative, the person who scheduled it.

The bill also writes a definition of sex into federal law: "a person's immutable biological classification, determined at the moment of conception."

What a law like that actually does

You don't need a ban if no doctor will take the risk. A hospital lawyer looking at strict liability, a 25-year window, retroactive exposure, unwaivable liability, and a rule that ambiguity goes against the doctor will reach one conclusion: don't offer this care to anyone under 18, anywhere, for any reason.

That is the mechanism. It's the same one used against abortion providers — don't outlaw the procedure, just make the liability so lopsided that nobody will perform it.

The bill's carve-outs are narrow and the burden of proving them sits on the doctor. A physician treating a child with a disorder of sexual development, or treating a complication from earlier care, has an affirmative defense — one they must establish by clear and convincing evidence, after they've already been sued.

This isn't new for him

Onder's record on LGBTQ Missourians goes back a decade.

In 2016, as a state senator, he introduced Senate Joint Resolution 39, a proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution shielding businesses that refuse to serve same-sex weddings. Democrats filibustered it for more than 39 hours — Onder himself called it the longest filibuster in state history — before Republican leaders cut off debate and pushed it through the Senate. Seven weeks later a Missouri House committee deadlocked 6–6 and it died. Onder's response was that House members had "caved to pressure from special interests."

Ten years apart, the same instinct: find a legal mechanism that lets other people do the excluding, and call it protection.

The company he keeps

The venue matters here as much as the words.

Onder didn't say "demonic evil" in a floor speech or to a local reporter. He said it to Tony Perkins' audience, on a program run by an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as an anti-LGBTQ hate group — and he said it while asking that audience to pray for him and his family's protection from the people his bill targets.

It's rhetoric with a body count risk, and it comes from someone who took an oath as a doctor before he took one as a congressman.

This is a pattern across the party, not one man's outburst. In Idaho, Gov. Brad Little signed a law that can send someone to prison for using the wrong bathroom — misdemeanor for a first offense, felony for a second within five years. In Colorado, Lauren Boebert spent a week trying to ban transgender troops and then missed the actual defense bill vote. The bills differ. The framing — that trans people are a threat to be legislated away — does not.

What Missourians get out of it

Onder is in his first term. He won his August primary and is set for a November rematch with Democrat Bethany Mann, this time in a district Missouri Republicans redrew mid-decade.

While he was writing this bill, an estimated 20,218 people in Missouri's 3rd District were on track to lose health coverage under the health care cuts he voted for, according to the Joint Economic Committee — 10,700 losing Affordable Care Act coverage and 9,518 losing Medicaid. Another 19,263 households in the district rely on SNAP to eat, including 8,428 with children.

Those are his constituents too. None of them got a prayer request on national radio.

Source

"GOP Congressman calls trans people a 'demonic evil' & asks supporters to pray for his protection", LGBTQ Nation, February 2026. Bill text and committee action from congress.gov. Photo: Nathan Papes / Springfield News-Leader / USA TODAY NETWORK.