HRC Article:
WASHINGTON — Last night, President Biden signed the FY25 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law, which includes a provision inserted by Speaker Mike Johnson blocking healthcare for the transgender children of military servicemembers. This provision, the first anti-LGBTQ+ federal law enacted since the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, will rip medically necessary care from the transgender children of thousands of military families – families who make incredible sacrifices in defense of the country each and every day. The last anti-LGBTQ+ federal law that explicitly targeted military servicemembers was Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which went into effect in 1994.
Biden’s press release:
No service member should have to decide between their family’s health care access and their call to serve our Nation.
Could he have? Even if he takes drastic action (as an official act, of course), it’s not guaranteed things will turn out better.
But at least he’d have tried… history remembers that too.
The number of times the Democrats have said “We couldn’t have won that vote, so we didn’t push the issue” and I’m like, that’s how you change the conversation! You get Congressional candidates on record as opposing this thing that would have helped. You don’t avoid the issue because you’ll lose.
I think the public seeing someone with power actually willing to lead would be a lot more valuable than we think.