House approves bill defunding medical mutilation for military kids
The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2025, which included a provision to defund medical mutilation procedures for gender dysphoric children of service members.
Section 709 of the $900 billion bill states that “hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and other medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization may not be provided to a child under the age of 18.” These procedures, which are often offered in addition to genital surgeries, are known to cause sterility, castration, heart damage, osteoporosis, anorgasmia, blood clots, and cancer.
The provision is not a general ban on medical mutilation for children but rather a ban on funding them for military kids through TRICARE, the taxpayer-funded healthcare program for service members and their families.
Two hundred Republicans and 81 Democrats voted to approve the NDAA, while 124 Democrats and 16 Republicans opposed it.
“Today's NDAA is a step toward restoring our armed forces by rejecting the woke agenda and refocusing on military readiness,” said Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) in an X post.
“This bill bans TRICARE coverage for sex-change surgeries for minors, authorizes National Guard deployments to secure our southern border, and provides a 19.5% pay raise for junior enlisted personnel.
“While this bill is a net positive, it’s not perfect. Thankfully, we will soon have a new Commander-in-Chief who will take the necessary steps to complete what this bill started, fully restore our military’s focus on strength and readiness, and completely end the woke agenda across the federal government. This bill is just the beginning of the work that needs to be done.”
House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-WA), however, slammed the bill as “bigoted against the trans community” and suggested that sterilizing kids is justified if it helps their mental health “in some instances.”
“The medical profession has no dispute that in some instances, this treatment is crucial to the health and well-being of our children,” he said. “And we are now denying that to the children of servicemembers.”
Contrary to Smith’s claim, there is a significant dispute in the medical profession about medical mutilation being “crucial” to children’s “health and well-being.” Many doctors emphasizing the ethical duties of their profession have declared the treatments to be irreversibly harmful while offering no benefit. Kids who are denied such interventions are not more suicidal than others while evidence suggests that children who are medically mutilated have a higher risk of suicide. This is especially significant considering that as many as 98% of children with gender dysphoria outgrow it.
UK institutes national ban
The vote came the same day that the UK imposed a national ban on medical mutilation. The government said Wednesday that “existing emergency measures banning the sale and supply of puberty-suppressing hormones will be made indefinite, following official advice from medical experts.” It cited the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM), which has concluded there is “an unacceptable safety risk” to performing medical mutilation procedures on kids with gender dysphoria.
While the US is lagging behind, efforts are being made to ban such interventions. Last week, Senator Roger “Doc” Marshall (R-KS) introduced the Safeguarding The Overall Protection of Minors (STOP) Act which would impose fines of up to $100,000 for providers who subject kids to medical mutilation.
