BURSTRep. Adam Smith (Wash.), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, is requesting Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) strike a provision from the annual defense policy bill targeting some medical treatments for transgender children.
House and Senate negotiators unveiled a compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) late Saturday, including a provision that would prevent TRICARE, the military’s health program, from covering gender dysphoria treatments “that could result in sterilization” for children under 18.
A more specific provision adopted by the Senate Armed Services Committee in its defense bill in July would have explicitly barred coverage for “affirming hormone therapy” and puberty blockers, as well as medical interventions for gender dysphoria — distress that stems from a mismatch between a person’s gender identity and sex at birth — for minors that “could result in sterilization.”
If the current provision is ratified, it will be the first federal statute targeting LGBTQ people since the 1990s, when Congress adopted “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — also part of an NDAA agreement — and the Defense of Marriage Act.
“Blanketly denying health care to people who clearly need it, just because of a biased notion against transgender people, is wrong,” Smith said in a statement on Sunday. “This provision injected a level of partisanship not traditionally seen in defense bills. Speaker Johnson is pandering to the most extreme elements of his party to ensure that he retains his speakership. In doing so, he has upended what had been a bipartisan process.”
“I urge the Speaker to abandon this current effort and let the House bring forward a bill—reflective of the traditional bipartisan process—that supports our troops and their families, invests in innovation and modernization, and doesn’t attack the transgender community,” Smith said.
Johnson, in his own statement on the bill, said the compromise version would “end the radical woke ideology being imposed on our military by permanently banning transgender medical treatment for minors.”
Other GOP-backed proposals to reverse the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy, gut diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and prohibit TRICARE from covering gender-affirming care for transgender service members were dropped from the final bill, suggesting Republicans believe the ban on care for minors isn’t enough to dissuade members from approving the final measure in its entirety.
More than half the nation since 2021 has either heavily restricted or banned some transition-related care for minors — and adults, in some cases — and the Supreme Court appears primed to uphold a Tennessee law prohibiting gender-affirming care for youth.
Major medical groups have said gender-affirming health care for transgender adults and minors is medically necessary and can be lifesaving. They reject efforts by state and federal governments to restrict treatment.
Smith’s comments on the NDAA may signal that some Democrats will vote against the must-pass bill when it is brought to the House floor in the coming days, potentially complicating its passage before the end of the year. Republicans, with only a razor-thin majority in the House, will likely need at least some Democrats to vote for the measure, which typically receives bipartisan support.
More than 160 House Democrats in September said any final NDAA agreement should not include provisions targeting LGBTQ service members and dependents, though some Democrats, following a string of brutal election losses in November, have said they are now hesitant to vote on transgender rights.
President Biden has repeatedly promised to veto any legislation that discriminates against transgender people. The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
President-elect Trump, one of several Republicans to spend millions on anti-trans campaign ads in the final weeks of the election, has promised to enact several policies targeting transgender people when he takes office in January, including a reinstatement of his 2017 ban on trans people serving openly in the military and a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.