The House rejected an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Tuesday that would codify President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender-identifying people from military service.
Four Republicans joined Democrats to kill the amendment, sponsored by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), by a slim margin of 212-217. The four Republicans who voted with Democrats are Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) — who both represents districts that voted for Kamala Harris — and Reps. James Moylan from Guam and Kimberlyn King-Hinds from the Northern Mariana Islands.
Salon noted that Moylan and King-Hinds are “nonvoting delegates who can debate and cast votes on amendments but not on actual legislation.”
“Four ‘republicans’ just betrayed President Trump and our military in favor of the Transgenders,” Boebert said in a post to X. “DISGUSTING!”
The amendment would have codified President Trump’s January 2025 executive order stating that “consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”
“Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” the order reads. “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
The president’s order states that the armed forces “shall neither allow males to use or share sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities designated for females, nor allow females to use or share sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities designated for males.”
In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia voted 2-1 against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to expel transgender-identifying people. The ruling blocked Hegseth from expelling 28 transgender-identifying individuals who filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the order. The ruling did not block the administration’s rule barring new transgender enlistees.
While Boebert’s amendment was blocked, two transgender-related amendments from Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) passed the House.
One of her amendments, which would ban the military health insurance plan, called TRICARE, from covering sex change drugs and surgeries, passed 219-208, with five Democrats siding with Republicans. Her other amendment, which would ban transgender-identifying males from playing on girls’ K-12 sports teams at Department of Defense-run schools, passed 221-203.
“Both of my NDAA amendments targeting mentally ill transgenders — and protecting our women and girls — passed the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives tonight with flying colors,” Mace said in a post to X on Tuesday.
The NDAA is an annual bill passed to establish policies and appropriations for the Department of Defense and national security programs in the Department of Energy.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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