For a year and a half, GOP lawmakers have been stealthily adding amendements to government appropriations bills, which are key to funding major government departments, to ban any federal money being used for gender transition procedures. This will dramatically curtail trans people’s access to medical care — just like the Hyde Amendment restricted abortion access, write Io Dodds and Eric Garcia.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives last January, GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill have quietly added a wave of amendments to “must-pass” government funding bills that would ban federal money from being used for gender transition procedures such as hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery.
“I remember a time when my own medical transition was the only thing going right in my life, and to have it taken away from me would have been existential at least,” says Gillian Branstetter, a communications strategist for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)’s LGBTQ and HIV Project.
Meanwhile, West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, who recently left the Democratic Party to become an independent, bizarrely claimed to be unaware that he had voted for a similar pair of amendments – only for his office to reverse course within 24 hours and say he did support them.
Cis women take HRT to mitigate side effects of menopause, or even acne; children receive puberty blockers to prevent premature sexual development; and intersex people undergo genital reconstructive surgery, frequently without their consent in early childhood.
Last year seven out of 12 appropriations bills were amended in the House to restrict trans healthcare, according to a report by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) – part of a raft of anti-LGBT+ additions ranging from bans on flying Pride flags above federal properties and blocking the enforcement of non-discrimination laws.
In June, House Republicans amended this year’s iteration of the annual National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) to revoke coverage for trans healthcare under the Pentagon’s sprawling Tricare health insurance program, which serves around 9.6m current and former service members and dependents.
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