Defense Bill with Transgender Care Ban Signed by Biden
President Joe Biden has signed into law a military funding bill, complete with a ban on transgender health treatments.
President Joe Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law, including a provision that strips away health care coverage from transgender minors who are children or dependents of military personnel.
The $895 billion bill, which focuses on military funding, as well as salary, housing, and child care services for military personnel, was targeted by Republicans, who submitted amendments that attacked transgender health care.
Under the Republican-introduced provision, TRICARE, the health insurance plan for military service members, is banned from covering any medical treatment for “gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization” for minor dependents of military members.
While hormone therapy and gender confirmation surgeries would no longer be covered by TRICARE, it remains unclear whether puberty blockers would also be banned, though the intent of the provision is to limit coverage for any transition-related treatment for gender dysphoria.
The House of Representatives voted 281-140 to pass the bill, with 81 Democrats voting for passage. Sixteen Republicans voted against the bill, but not because of the transgender health restrictions.
Senate Democrats attacked the provision, but failed to get it removed from the bill, which ultimately passed by a vote of 85-14.
Despite facing pressure from LGBTQ advocacy groups, Biden signed the bill into law, unwilling to give Republicans a line of attack against Democrats that might brand them as insufficiently supportive of the military.
The bill, with the ban on transition-related care intact, is the first piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation to pass both chambers of Congress since the now-defunct “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was first introduced in 1993.
Biden issued a statement saying he was pleased to support most of the funding provisions in the bill but expressed concerns about the transgender care ban, arguing that it targets a group based on gender identity and “interferes with parents’ roles to determine the best care for their children.”
He also argued that the provision would undermine the military’s ability to recruit and retain qualified service members, some of whom may leave the Armed Forces after being faced with the choice of deciding “between their family’s health care access and their call to serve our Nation.”
Kelley Robinson, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, said that Biden and congressional lawmakers “have failed military families” by allowing the TRICARE ban to become law.
“Military families lay everything on the line for our country,” she said in a statement. “They uproot and move at a moment’s notice, make immense personal sacrifices, and often risk their lives in defense of our freedoms.
“In turn, that sacrifice has been met with disrespect and the use of their children as a political bargaining chip. For them, this law is not about politics — it’s about losing the freedom to make their own health care decisions.”
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