Top Republicans in the Senate and House are introducing new legislation that would ban some transgender people from serving in the military.
The Ensuring Military Readiness Act, sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), would disqualify Americans who identify as transgender, have a history of gender dysphoria or who have undergone gender reassignment surgery.
Limited exceptions include those who have been "stable in their biological sex" for 36 months prior to joining the military, and active military members who remain deployable according to the "retention standards" of their sex assigned at birth.
The legislation builds on Trump-era restrictions that were repealed by the Biden Administration but adds more stringent requirements to ensure all service members' gender markers match their biological sex.
Rubio said the Department of Defense has always taken the physical and mental characteristics of individuals into account when determining eligibility for service, disqualifying those who suffer mental health issues such as a history of depression or anxiety that require medication, learning disorders like ADD or ADHD that require medication, and even peanut or gluten allergies.
"The military has strict standards for who can and cannot qualify to serve," Sen. Rubio said in a statement. "Biden has turned our military into a woke social experiment. It is a stupid way to go about protecting our nation. We need to spend more time thinking about how to counter threats like China, Russia, and North Korea and less time thinking about pronouns."
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Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) will introduce companion legislation in the House.
"Our military holds recruits to stringent medical standards for a reason and the Biden administration’s special carveout for those suffering from gender dysphoria was purely political," Banks said. "Our bill ensures that DoD puts lethality and readiness before far-left ideology."
The Ensuring Military Readiness Act requires the Secretary of Defense, within 90 days, to issue regulations that would:
1. Disqualify all individuals who identify as transgender, who have a history or have been diagnosed, with gender dysphoria unless:
• They have been stable in their biological sex for 36 months prior to joining the military;
• They are already in the military, are stable in their biological sex, and remain deployable according to the retention standards of their biological sex;
• Those serving on the date of enactment of the legislation who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria may continue to serve according to their biological sex, and may receive medically necessary treatment except for transition procedures (defined to include transition surgery and hormone therapy).
2. Disqualify any individual who identifies as transgender who seeks or has already undertaken gender reassignment surgery.
3. Allow any transgender individual without a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria, who are otherwise qualified for service, to serve in their biological sex.
4. Require the Secretary to change how the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System works to only allow biological sex to be taken into consideration for gender markers, with no means of identifying as a different gender than birth sex, and to retroactively change back any gender markers currently in the system that do not match a service member’s biological sex.
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Ryan Walker, Vice President of Government Relations for Heritage Action, which has endorsed the legislation, said data shows that service members with gender dysphoria are at a much higher risk of suicide, crippling anxiety, or other mental conditions than their peers.
"The Biden administration's decision to allow for those diagnosed with gender dysphoria to serve will harm readiness by reducing the number of troops that are available to deploy," Walker said.
The legislation is sponsored by Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Ted Budd (R-NC), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), and Mike Braun (R-IN).
Brandon Wolf, a spokesperson for LGBTQ rights group Equality Florida, condemned the legislation.
"This disgraceful, alarming move openly discriminates against those servicemembers stationed around the world who willingly serve and is a dangerous escalation of the scapegoating of transgender people by right wing politicians to score cheap points," Wolf said in a statement to The Advocate. "There are over 15,000 openly transgender people proudly serving in our military. They and future generations of transgender people have a right to serve the nation they love."
Days after taking office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order lifting the transgender military ban, saying "gender identity should not be a bar to military service."
"What I'm doing is enabling all qualified Americans to serve their country in uniform, and essentially restoring the situation as it existed before, with transgender personnel, if qualified in every other way, can serve their government in the United States military," Biden said before reversing the ban.
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A White House statement added, "America is stronger, at home and around the world, when it is inclusive. The military is no exception. Allowing all qualified Americans to serve their country in uniform is better for the military and better for the country because an inclusive force is a more effective force. Simply put, it's the right thing to do and is in our national interest."
The White House also pointed to a 2016 study requested by the Department of Defense that determined enabling transgender individuals to serve openly in the military "had no significant impact on operational effectiveness or unit cohesion in foreign militaries."