Tell Me What Do Trans Children Have To Do With Defense.

The Republicans think it does…

Defense bill could hit last-minute snag over transgender provision

A top Democrat now says he’s uncertain whether he will vote for the policy bill that he helped craft.

Politico

By Connor O’Brien

December 7, 2024

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee said Saturday he’s still undecided on how he’ll vote on a Pentagon policy bill he helped negotiate after Republicans insisted on language aimed at medical treatments for transgender children.

The comments from Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) could signal some Democrats will have difficulty supporting the must-pass bill when it hits the House floor in the coming days and complicate its passage as a year-end deadline to get it to President Joe Biden’s desk nears.

Republicans will likely need at least some Democratic votes to pass the annual National Defense Authorization Act, and it typically receives bipartisan support. The Pentagon bill is one of the few major bills that reliably becomes law each year. If it doesn’t pass, it would break a more than six decade-long streak of defense policy legislation passing each year.

The Republicans in their loathing us stick anti-trans amendment in must pass bills.

“It’s the Republicans taking advantage of a partisan wedge issue,” Smith said in an interview. The ranking Armed Services Democrat blamed Speaker Mike Johnson for the provision’s inclusion, arguing he “prioritized the small extremist group” of conservatives in a bid to lock down votes to keep the speaker’s gavel in January.

It is the adults who demonize us, and inject their 1950s view of the world and reject all the major medical associations guidelines.

“At the end of the day, you still have language in the bill that says we’re going to blanketly deny health care to people who clearly need it, just because of a sort of biased notion against the trans community,” Smith said. “And I’m troubled by that.”

So am I.

And remember, the Republicans have a trifecta... but just by a couple of votes but it could spell disaster for us.