The U.S. Senate appears poised to pass the National Defense Authorization Act later this week, voting 63-7 on Monday to invoke cloture on the annual defense budget bill, which contains controversial provisions, including a prohibition on covering transgender medical care for the children of U.S. service members.
While all signs now point toward a smooth journey for passage of the NDAA, 21 Senate Democrats led by U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) signed on to an amendment introduced Monday evening that would remove the anti-trans policy rider.
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (Mass.), a cosponsor of Baldwin’s resolution, held a press conference on Tuesday with LGBTQ advocates to raise awareness about the issue, telling reporters “It is unacceptable for politicians to use the NDAA to force themselves between families and their health care providers, all in pursuit of their discriminatory aims.”
“We cannot stand by as these attacks on health care freedom continue, and we cannot pass the NDAA with this language included,” the senator said. “Trans rights are human rights.”
Also on Tuesday, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), another co-sponsor, delivered a speech on the Senate floor in which he shared, “there’s one provision in this conference agreement that troubles me—a provision that would ban certain medical treatments for transgender children of service members,” which “eliminates the ability of military families to work with medical professionals and make their own decisions about the health care needs of their own children.”
Baldwin’s office said the rule could restrict healthcare access for 6,000 to 7,000 children of U.S. service members who rely on the military’s Tricare provider for coverage of guideline-directed, medically necessary gender affirming treatments.
The rider was first added by House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) who passed the NDAA last week by a comfortable margin, 281-140 — with 81 Democrats including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) voting for the bill as others objected to the anti-trans provision.
U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, who said “Blanketly denying health care to people who clearly need it, just because of a biased notion against transgender people, is wrong.”
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, the gay chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, said in a statement that “Speaker Johnson is playing political games with the health of our service members’ children by inserting himself into private medical decisions and overriding families’ choices—and our service members and their children will pay the price.”
Also voting against the bill last week was every out LGBTQ member of the House, with the exception of U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.), who told The Advocate that, “I strongly oppose the riders that Speaker Johnson included in the NDAA that would limit insurance coverage for military family members” and “will continue to fight for full equality for all members of the LGBTQ+ community, including transgender Americans, and my record in Congress demonstrates that.”
The Senate’s likely passage of the NDAA comes also despite last week’s letter by 45 Democratic members urging leadership to reject the “partisan, discriminatory, and harmful” policy riders added by House Republicans to must-pass spending bills, noting that most have tended to target reproductive and LGBTQ rights.
While the GOP caucus ultimately rejected more extreme anti-trans proposals, like a ban on funding gender transition surgeries for adults, the NDAA includes, along with the Tricare rule, a ban on contracting with advertising companies that “blacklist conservative news sources” and a freeze on hiring and recruiting for DEI-related roles pending the completion of an investigation into those programs.
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