During their 2024 election campaigning and in the weeks afterward, Republicans focused heavily on anti-transgender messaging. President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign ran an ad criticizing Kamala Harris for allowing undocumented immigrants access to transgender healthcare in prison, with the tagline “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”
Shortly after the election, Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced legislation to ban transgender women from using women’s restrooms on Capitol Hill. It’s hard to not see that legislation as targeted, considering Sarah McBride had only just become the first openly transgender woman elected to Congress.
But for the most part, such actions have been insulated to the world of Washington. And there likely is not much of a political appetite to focus on trans people after an election that focused so heavily on rising prices and the economy. Even in his Time Magazine interview, Trump said, “I don’t want to get into the bathroom issue” because “it's a very small number of people we're talking about, and it's ripped apart our country.”
That changed this week as House Republicans nestled in a piece of anti-trans policy into a must-pass bill.
Every year, the Senate has to pass what’s called the National Defense Authorization Act, which, as its name might indicate, authorizes defense spending before Congress writes its official budget. In recent years, Republicans have added provisions to that bill which they know would not pass on their own — but the must-pass nature of the NDAA allows them to do so.
One amendment in the bill would prohibit TRICARE, the healthcare program for active duty service members, from covering “certain medical procedures for children that could result in sterilization.” The Independent reported in July that a similar amendment passed in the Senate Armed Services Committee after Joe Manchin, the Democrat-turned-independent, joined Republicans on it.
Another amendment would have prohibited “the performance by the Department of Defense of sex change surgeries.” That second amendment did not appear in the House version that passed, but could likely appear in next year’s NDAA.
Unsurprisingly, most Democrats in the House opposed the amendment, with 124 Democrats voting against it and only 80 Democrats voting for it. Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, denounced it on the floor.
“We are doing it because of ignorant, bigoted reasons against the trans community,” Smith said in his floor remarks right before the vote.
Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee also expressed their dismay. Senator Jack Reed, who is chairman of the committee, told The Independent that the Democrats were able to strip out many of the other anti-trans positions that Republicans wanted, but that Speaker Mike Johnson demanded this provision specifically.
Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona told The Independent that the US military faces challenges with recruitment, and this amendment wouldn’t help. Nevertheless, he said, the bill needed to go through for practical reasons.
“This presents an obstacle that's put in front of military families trying to get their kids the care they need,” he said. “So, it's unfortunate, but ultimately this is about compromise. We got to get a defense bill passed. It's so important to our national security.”
A retired Naval pilot from a battleground state who was once considered a potential vice presidential nominee, Kelly has credibility to speak on how right-wing provisions hurt the military. At the same time, he also revealed that Republicans essentially ran out the clock and stuck in this final poison pill.
Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada, who last month pulled off a miracle win and won re-election despite Kamala Harris losing the Silver State, offered a similar response.
“I'm concerned, but I do believe, at the end of the day, those are really decisions for parents to make about their children,” she said. She then stressed the need to pass the NDAA. “I can tell you that for over the past 60 years, every year we’ve passed the National Defense Authorization Act. We need to pass it again this year. It's important to our troops. It's important to our safety and security around the world.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told The Independent: “Republicans are hoping to create a wedge issue by trying to target some of the most vulnerable families in military service. That is an ugly thing to do.” When asked whether she would opppose it, she said, “Yes.”
This all serves as a preview for the first two years of the Trump presidency: Republicans will likely load up these bills with as many anti-trans provisions as they can and all but dare Democrats to oppose them, knowing that they will be able to beat them up for prioritizing transgender rights instead of must-pass legislation.
Democrats, for their part, are keen to point out that Republicans seem to know their anti-transgender policies come off as bigoted and mean-spirited and that the only way they can get any of them through are by posion pills.
All the while, trans Americans will be the ones having to deal with the fallout on the ground.
