Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida offered an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act that would preclude people who identify as transgender from serving in the military.
Additionally, GOP Sen. Steve Daines of Montana filed an amendment that would ban adult “cabaret performances” on Department of Defense-owned properties, which would include drag queen shows.
Rubio stated in a news release last week that he filed the Ensuring Military Readiness Act as an amendment to the NDAA.
Sens. Ted Budd of North Carolina, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, and Mike Braun of Indiana were all original cosponsors of the legislation and presumably will vote for it as an amendment to the NDAA.
“Senator Rubio’s legislation would prohibit any individual with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria from serving in the military, with limited exceptions,” the lawmaker’s office said in a news release regarding the legislation when he first introduced it in February.
Days after taking office in January 2021, President Joe Biden removed former President Donald Trump’s ban on transgenders serving in the military.
Rubio argued this was a wrong decision.
“The military has strict standards for who can and cannot qualify to serve. For example, under President Biden, you can’t serve with a peanut allergy,” he noted in his February news release.
“Biden has turned our military into a woke social experiment. It is a stupid way to go about protecting our nation. We need to spend more time thinking about how to counter threats like China, Russia, and North Korea and less time thinking about pronouns,” the senator said.
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Rubio’s amendment would require the secretary of defense to issue a regulation disqualifying all individuals who identify as transgender or have a history or have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria from serving in the military.
Exceptions would be for individuals “stable in their biological sex for 36 months prior to joining the military,” according to Rubio’s February news release.
Additionally, those who are already in the military can remain in service if they are “stable in their biological sex, and remain deployable according to the retention standards of their biological sex.”
Further, those who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria can “continue to serve according to their biological sex, and may receive medically necessary treatment except for transition procedures (defined to include transition surgery and hormone therapy.)”
The Washington Times reported Saturday that Budd has proposed an amendment to the NDAA “that would prohibit military benefits from paying for gender dysphoria treatments for family members of active duty service members. The prohibition would include hormone therapy, puberty blockers and other medical treatments for children that could result in sterilization.”
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, “If you wall off to people in the service, the ability to get care that you can get if you’re not in the military, that in and of itself is an inequity.’”
Daines’ amendment banning drag queen shows on military facilities is also based on a bill he previously offered.
“Our military’s mission is clear: to provide the military forces needed to deter and win wars and to protect the security of our country and our allies,” Daines said in May regarding the legislation.
“Allowing the DOD to become a branch of far-Left helping to promote their radical gender ideology by hosting and promoting drag queen performances is a threat to our national security and gross misuse of taxpayer funds. This must be stopped immediately,” he added.
The pro-LGBT rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, has come out against GOP lawmakers’ efforts in the House to restrict transgenders from serving in the military.
HRC vice president of government affairs David Stacy argued in a news release this month that House Republicans have a choice.
“They can reject these politicized amendments that single out transgender service members and their families or they can embrace the anti-LGBTQ+ extremists in the House of Representatives,” he said.
“We call on the House to reject these cynical and cruel attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, which fly in the face of overwhelming evidence and are being used as a political weapon. Injecting their self-ignited culture war into this national defense bill is a recipe for disaster.”
