, despite anti-trans additions to the act.){kind=link}
By the time you’re reading this, 2024 will be nestled in the dumpster of history, being nibbled on by rats. I’d say good riddance, if we weren’t heading into 2025, the year Trump takes office again and inevitably makes everything worse. This will no doubt be true for many things, but especially LGBTQ+ rights.
Not that things are great in the first place. We’re in the midst of a major backlash against LGBTQ+ rights and the people who are supposed to be fighting for us, well, they’re not.
There is no disputing that there is a huge difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party on LGBTQ+ rights. Republicans have been actively fighting against any advancements for decades. They’ve been especially vicious when it comes to transgender people, especially transgender kids.
Democrats, on the other hand, have been very supportive of the LGBTQ+ community. Granted, it took them a long time to come around (you’ll recall that it was President Bill Clinton who signed both the anti-LGBTQ+ Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which prevented LGBTQ+ people from serving openly in the military. Even President Obama declared that marriage was between a man and a woman once upon a time).
But at a time when LGBTQ+ people need defending more than ever, it seems as if the Democratic Party has decided that the whole thing isn’t worth the trouble.
Case in point: the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which determines policy for the Pentagon and U.S. national security for 2025.
This bill has 60 years of bipartisan support, so its passage isn’t surprising.
What’s concerning, however, is that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) slapped a ban on gender-affirming care for the trans kids of service members, a cruel and petty move designed to hurt a very specific and very small group of people. The bill “also includes language preventing the Defense Department from backing critical race theory,” reports The Hill, “and puts a yearlong hiring freeze on positions related to diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the military.”
But Democrats by and large voted in favor of the NDAA and President Biden signed it anyway. Clearly, neither racist bullshit nor hurting military families and their trans kids aren’t deal breakers.
“Senators voted 85 to 14 in favor of passing the National Defense Authorization Act,” Newsweek reports. “Only 10 of the 47 Democrats in the chamber voted against the act.” Meanwhile, 81 House Democrats also supported the NDAA. Newsweek has a list of every Democrat who voted in support.
But don’t worry. A lot of Democrats feel really bad about it.
“I’m unapologetically supportive of our national defense and the trans community,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) said in a statement. “My AYE vote on the NDAA strongly affirms my commitment to our national security. My vote does not, in any way, diminish my voice or mean I’m turning my back on the trans community. Outside my office I have several flags including the POW/MIA flag and the Progress Pride flag — because these are not incompatible values.”
And he’s right! They’re not incompatible. But having a Pride flag outside of a congressional office does nothing to protect the people represented by that flag, especially if that member of Congress doesn’t use his voting power to protect those people.
“I share many of my colleagues’ frustration that the bill includes a provision that would prohibit gender-affirming health care for minors in certain circumstances,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Thank you, Sen. Reed, for your frustration. What a difference that will make for the people hurt by the bill you supported.
Biden released a statement about how much he did not like parts of the bill he signed, including the anti-trans part.
“My Administration strongly opposes Division A, title VII, subtitle A, section 708 of the Act, which inhibits the Department of Defense’s ability to treat all persons equally under the law, no matter their gender identity. By prohibiting the use of appropriated funds, the Department of Defense will be compelled to contravene clinical practice guidelines and clinical recommendations,” the statement reads. “The provision targets a group based on that group’s gender identity and interferes with parents’ roles to determine the best care for their children. This section undermines our all-volunteer military’s ability to recruit and retain the finest fighting force the world has ever known by denying health care coverage to thousands of our service members’ children. No service member should have to decide between their family’s health care access and their call to serve our Nation.”Yet that’s exactly what service members are being asked to do, with Democratic support. As some guy who should never have been president once, let alone twice, would say, “Sad!”