Senate Republicans are filing amendments to the annual Pentagon policy bill that would restrict transgender people from military service and ban drag shows on military bases.
The transgender-related measures are a small portion of the 800 amendments senators proposed for the National Defense Authorization Act, but they promise to be major sticking points in the partisan clash over Pentagon policies under President Biden.
The legislation includes a revival of a Trump administration policy that disqualified transgender people from military service, a halt to coverage of transgender-related medical services and a prohibition of drag shows on military bases.
Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, wants to disqualify transgender people and those who have undergone gender reassignment surgery from military service. He also wants to disqualify people who have a diagnosed history of gender dysphoria.
His proposed legislation would provide exceptions, including if a person has been “stable in their biological sex 36 months prior to joining the military” and service members who are already in the military and stable in their biological sex.
Under his plan, service members who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria would be allowed to continue to serve under their biological sex and receive treatment for gender dysphoria, but not gender reassignment surgery.
Sen. Ted Budd, North Carolina Republican, proposed an amendment 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.
Democrats argued that such restrictions are discriminatory and a disincentive to enlisting in the U.S. military, which is already suffering a recruitment crisis.
When asked why Democrats want the Department of Defense to fund transgender-related medical services, Sen. Tim Kaine said that a fellow senator made a “powerful case” about a family member who relied on military benefits to receive sex-change treatments.
“They just made a very personal case about this and 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,’” said Mr. Kaine, a Virginia Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Steve Daines, Montana Republican, proposed an amendment that would ban “adult cabaret performances” on Department of Defense-owned properties. Those types of performances would include drag shows, topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dances and strippers.
Mr. Daines told The Washington Times that the add-on was a response to a drag show performance for children at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, an installation that houses 150 intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“When the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians and North Koreans see that we’re hosting drag shows on a base, it projects weakness to the world,” Mr. Daines said.
These amendments echo the version of the NDAA that the GOP-run House passed in a party-line vote on July 14. The restrictions on transgender service members face solid opposition from Democrats who consider transgender equality a red-line issue.
These policies also are guaranteed to be flash points when the House and Senate meet in a conference committee later this year to hammer out the final version of the bill.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, urged lawmakers to avoid “potentially toxic” amendments that could derail the must-pass measure earlier this week.
“We want both sides to have input, but neither side should derail the bill,” Mr. Schumer recently said on the Senate floor. “We should avoid the chaos we saw … in the House that greatly hindered their NDAA process.”
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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