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.
Title is quite disingenuous. Doesn’t match content.
I swear Biden is doing absolutely everything in his power to make his administration and the Democrats look as feckless and duplicitous as possible. All this bluster about saving democracy leading up to the election and he hasn’t lifted a finger to protect it since November 6th, but he sure does jump at the chance to abuse his pardon power and sign laws with bonafide conservative horseshit like this in it.
This country is an absolute joke. If this is what we were hoping would stop the tide of fascist ideology, then we’re doomed to suffer at the hands of spineless politicians who think compromise with the uncompromising is a winning strategy.
Trans allies: We need solidarity.
DNC: We will protect Trans people
Trans “allies”: Don’t vote for the DNC they’re not good enough
DNC: *loses election*
DNC: *Supports Queer folk less than before*
Oh how surprising. Who could’ve seen this coming.
Trans “allies”: Don’t vote for the DNC they’re not good enough
86% of LGBT people voted for Kamala Harris, at least according to exit polling.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls
These figures mark Trump’s worst-ever performance with LGBT voters — who make up about 8% of the population.
To blame transgender people, who make up a minority of the US population and electorate is not only untrue, as LGBT resoundedly voted democrat, but its also disgusting to somehow blame our oppression on ourselves. The Democrats lost this election because they failed to address the economic issues of the working class, and instead focused on centrist pandering and immigration. Democrats cannot advocate for the working class because ultimately they are beholden to the ruling class elites.
I’m talking about a very vocal part of the internet (infact this very site) that pretend that not voting for the DNC is virtuous and give lip service to queer issues. Hence the scare quotes.
I’ll take lip service over whatever we have in store for the foreseeable future. Wouldn’t be surprised if Republicans try to eradicate or criminalize lgbt.
Politicians support whatever they think the popular opinion is of voters. Most don’t care about lgbt but if they see enough voters do then they support stuff like gay marriage. Whenever they see lgbt rights lost during an election their takeaway is that it doesn’t matter to people who turn out to vote.
I’ll take lip service over whatever we have in store for the foreseeable future. Wouldn’t be surprised if Republicans try to eradicate or criminalize lgbt.
If you think you’re contradicting me on that point then I’ve been entirely misunderstood.
I was agreeing with you but I think my frustration with everything going on made the tone seem like it was against you.
The wheels on the bus go thump thump thump
smell that bipartisanship.
I will never hold my nose to vote democratic ever again. Plus it wouldn’t help, your stench permeates throughout the entire country.
Your time in the sun is over blue conservatives. The same could be said for the country that was in your stewardship.
We trusted you to defeat literal clowns and not only were you incapable, you joined the circus.
You are not to be trusted ever again.
You love to see it; when liberals take their masks off. People ripped me up for bringing up Biden’s past racism and bigotry and intolerance.
Hope you’re happy, America. You’re all a bunch of fucking losers.
This is the bill in question: H.R 5009
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/5009
I implore anyone defending Biden for this as him having to make a “tough decision” to review the roll calls for the votes on this bill.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1182/vote_118_2_00325.htm
40 Democratic senators voted yes.
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024500
81 Democratic represenatives voted yes.
This anti-trans bill was passed with support from the Democrats. The bourgeoisie political parties of the United States will never protect your human rights, especially when dollars for the military are on the line.
“But the Dems are unable to do helpful things, they just have to approve of horrid bills that actively hurt the people who vote for them!”
“What would the donors think!”
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Further cementing both parties as part and parcel to the problems in America.
One wrecks shop, the other apologizes and “hopes” they don’t wreck it more, really really with sugar on top, BLM, 💜💜
I’m not sure what I’m insulted by more, the fascists or the pandering corporate Democrat liars pretending we’re all best friends.
Neither speak for our country. We, the workers, the toilers, the sticks that churn this economy should be the ones speaking for it, not these thieves and grifters.
We need bernie to make this new party
Bernie doesn’t have a ton of tread on his tires.
I like AOC, but I get that half of the country would never vote for her because sassy woman minority, etc.
Now, there is one guy who would never do it, but could get elected in a heartbeat, and would be a firebrand, like Bernie and would likely turn us around.
Jon Stewart.
Don’t like it, vote Dem to keep right wing movements out of DC
If it’s the only option.
But it’s kinda like the Mcgriddle. I don’t even want to be at McDonalds. I’m just taking the best they’ve got.
A big part of the issue is they need 60 votes on budgets, constitutional amendments, court decision reversals, and removal from court/congress/presidency.
So either you have bipartisanship between moderates and literally satan to cover 99.9% of troops families, or you have the entire government collapse leaving every single troops family without coverage.
The only way out is to give the progressive party 60 votes, but every election cycle we stray further away from that.
Although there is also a way for 34 states to come together and force a constitutional change, but idk if that has ever once happened in all of US History?
Disagree. The only reason 60 votes are needed is because somebody will filibuster it. So grow a fucking backbone, and call out whichever asshole senator is refusing to fund the troops because he cares more about sticking it to transgender people. Don’t just vote for the thing, don’t focus on getting it passef no matter what, put your fucking foot down and name and shame. Point out that one person is holding up a spending bill worth hundreds of billions of dollars over an objection to a line item that probably costs $100k.
Or better, reform the filibuster. The filibuster is a good thing in concept. The procedural filibuster however means that it now takes 60 votes to pass something instead of 50 and there’s essentially no consequence for that. That was not the intent of the Framers.
If you want to filibuster something, you should have to get up there and read the phone book for hours. It should grind the government to a halt. It should be disruptive to everything, a measure used for only the worst bills.
Some things do automatically require a supermajority, but removing Filibuster right before a Republican Majority is basically giving them complete authority, no?
But even if every single Senate Democrat was on board with the idea, they would still be outnumbered by Republicans for the last 10 years, they’ve only managed to pick majority leaders in that time period because of caucusing with Ind and an occasional VP tiebreaker.
Get 51 D + 2 Ind then I can fully support removing the filibuster.
What about flipping the script and accusing the Republicans on every avenue that they want the troops to go without coverage, unless they get their bigotry in it too?
Why not accuse them of wanting to deny coverage to all these troops?
The reality is that the Dems are fine with this and never cared about Trans rights past identifying it as relevant to get votes with progressives. Now as it has served its usefullness to them, they discard Trans people, like they will discard other LGBT, ethnic and religious minorities…
Because the election was a month ago and a new congress is about to take over immediately after a recess, at which point Trump will be entering office. Either a bipartisan bill passes now or a conservative one passes after January.
Either a bipartisan bill passes now or a conservative one passes after January.
This is a conservative bill.
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Both conservative parties voted for the anti-trans bill you keep defending. It can be both bipartisan and conservative. That’s what bipartisan has implied for at least a decade.
Its a really bad look to desperately try to remove as much context as possible.
So what is the difference between a bipartisan anti-trans bill and a republican anti-trans bill, if both bills are designed by the Republicans?
Several Republican Amendments were removed from the final version of the bill, including blocking Palestinian Refugees, defunding the Pier in Palestine used to ship necessary aid in, stopping any military academy from engaging in Critical Race Theory, blocking reproductive care reimbursement for military, among many other things.
If you want to read up on it, heres a good SUMMARY
we should swap the pardon power for line item veto
we should swap the pardon power for line item veto
Yeah. Would be neat watching Democrats make excuses for why only Republicans could use it.
You know, I get that there are problems with the Democrats, I really do. But when a Republican alters a bill to include a massively shitty clause, and the president signs it in place because the alternative is likely people not getting paid, and someone suggests a fix to this shitty behavior in a broken system, you always lean into the response of, “Yep, too bad the Democrats don’t want to do shitty stuff, too.” While consistently ignoring all the rest of it.
It makes me think you might not be discussing this in good faith.
But when a Republican alters a bill to include a massively shitty clause, and the president signs it in place because the alternative is likely people not getting paid
Where do you draw the line?
If a Republican alters a bill to include “outlaw miscegenation among military servicemembers” and the president signs it because the alternative is likely people not getting paid, are you okay with that?
“outlaw miscegenation among military servicemembers”
You sir have sent me to a dictionary. You are hereby awarded one pat to be applied to the back
miscegenation
yeah, up to now I had forgotten that trump has a history of hating black people in particular. I imagine that will errupt pretty soon in some way or another.
Nope, but if he hadn’t signed it the headline would have been “Biden Canceled Christmas for America’s Troops”, which is a large part of the reason the Republicans did this, and the same people who are complaining about him signing would be complaining about him not signing.
And honestly, I think this will be forgotten pretty quickly when Trump and the Republicans start rolling out all kinds of regressive laws, some of which I’m sure will supercede this. And some people here will blame the Democrats for not having run a compelling enough campaign, since personal survival isn’t compelling enough for some people.
I’m glad the president that already lost the election cares more about headlines than his constituents rights.
Three things. You’re surprised the party member is concerned about the optics for headlines affecting his party in a thread entirely about people complaining about the party because of his actions? And what do you think the outcome would be if he hadn’t signed it, when the other party has already repeatedly demonstrated that they’re happy to watch the whole thing burn for headlines? All while happily ignoring my last paragraph where I quite clearly state that I think this little rider will be shortly superceded by other, more expansive laws the Republicans have stated they will do in Project 2025 and Agenda 47 (or whatever Trump decided to call his version of Project 2025).
Oh no, not a bad headline! Think of what that would do to Biden’s reelection chances! 🙄
Do not obey in advance. Democrats, by giving ground here, are laying the groundwork for much worse things that Republicans are going to be able to do in the future. I’m trans and I’m pretty sure I’m going to fucking die, because Democrats would rather sacrifice me to avoid bad headlines.
Ah, the commenter who was dedicated to the loss of the Dems at all costs is now giving advice to the Democratic Party, how wonderful. And blaming the GOP administration that may very well kill her and countless other oppressed demographics, myself included, she helped usher in on the Dems too, how predictable.
By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the Democratic Party is at the same time too strong and too weak, right?
I dunno about weak/strong, but disappointing, lazy, unprincipled, corrupt and feckless? yes.
The democratic party is a bourgeoisie party that serves the interests of the ruling class, just like the Republicans. It is irrelevant what you say or do, the outcome of elections is determined by the bourgeoisie of the United States. Democrats have made numerous promises to protect trans people and yet, 121 democrats voted for this bill.
Ah, the commenter who was dedicated to the loss of the Dems at all costs
You spent the past year saying that about anyone who was in the least upset about genocide.
Democrats chose who they wanted to be shitty to.
This is going to be Democrats’ last word about trans people for a long time.
You’ll have to get 60 votes to make it happen. I’m game, honestly, nobody should be above the law, and precisely for that reason no Republican would ever vote for this.
God when will people stop falling for this crap, this is exactly the culture war repubs are waging. Half of them don’t even give a crap about shitting on LGBTQ+, what they care about is shitting on the Dems so R’s can stay in power. They put the poison pill in a bill that Biden has no choice but to sign, JUST TO GET HEADLINES LIKE THIS, so that progressives will blame Biden and the democrats instead of the magats. And you fall for it every time. Sure, sometimes you also blame the R’s for actually doing the bad things, but you always blame democrats when they aren’t able to stop R’s from doing the bad things. You all might hate the military but we kind of need one and if we just shut it down we’re leaving ourselves vulnerable. What you are doing by blaming Biden for this is like saying yeah what the rapist did was wrong but she didn’t fight him off hard enough, she must have wanted it. smh
Why didnt the Democrats block this bill and accuse the Republicans of trying to abuse it to pass their bigotry, rather putting millions of people well being on the line?
If you always play the bad game instead of standing up from the table and calling it out, it is because you do like playing the game and you are fine with the consequences.
Of course Democrats called them out on it and tried to pass an amendment to strip it out: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/12/democrats-stand-up-for-trans-kids-during-senate-debate-on-military-health-care-provision/
My OP point is, stop reacting to click bait headlines in just the way they meant for you to, Actually read enough to get an understanding of what the bills are and what’s in them, what happened during the process they went through, and why various people acted how they did before jumping to conclusions. Stop falling for dirty political tactics designed to keep magats in power and promote their christian nationalist agendas while keeping the rest of us fighting with each other so they can keep getting reelected.
They put the poison pill in a bill that Biden has no choice but to sign
He could have refused to sign. But that might have violated one of the precious norms that Democrats care more about than trans people.
Tell us you have no idea how the government works without telling us you have no idea how the government works.
Centrists pull out the “you don’t know how government works” gaslighting whenever someone calls them out and they have no actual rebuttal.
Concession accepted.
It’s called facing reality and dealing with it, which isn’t nearly as much fun as mindlessly bashing oversimplified interpretations of click-bait headlines. Sure, it’s nice to play the game online where you pick one issue and ignore all the other issues no matter how important they are, but in the real world you have to do the best you can do. The consequences of vetoing the bill would be huge, while one of the articles posted elsewhere in the comments here[1] talks about the number of children who could be affected and that there are very few circumstances where the provision in the bill would have an impact (e.g. it only disallows treatments that would result in sterilization, which doesn’t include puberty blockers, etc.). But you’re obviously not interested in seriously considering the details and practicalities of the real world situation, just enjoying railing against Biden, so have fun with that.
[1] edit to repost that link: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/12/senate-passes-military-bill-with-provision-restricting-trans-healthcare/
Being willing to sacrifice the rights and protections of ‘a few’ minorities so that our already inflated military doesn’t face delays in payment is exactly what Biden and the other democrats are being criticized for here.
That you agree that those rights are unimportant isn’t exactly the impassioned defense you think it is
Being willing to sacrifice the rights and protections of ‘a few’ minorities
Democrats aren’t just willing to sacrifice trans people. They’re eager to.
“But protecting minorities just isn’t popular. We’ll never win if we’re too woke.”
Anyone who could vote and says they care about the rights of trans people better have voted for Harris or you have no standing on this issue.
Lmao
“Only people who were able to set aside their moral/ethical objections to genocide are qualified to speak on the topic of standing up for minority rights”
The copium is strong in this one.
I already accepted your concession. You got what you wanted out of this bill. It’s a shame they had to fund the military too, huh?
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I guess if there was any doubt before, it’s gone now. Neither party is suitable. Time to really vote progressive. We need a new party that isn’t deeply entrenched with whatever made hime sign that.
Time to do more than voting, comrade. The rule makers will never allow real change within the rules that they create.
Reps took down Roe. Do you count that as “real change”?
Out of curiosity if I made you choose between:
-
0% of military troops’ families getting salaries and healthcare
-
100% of military troops’ families getting salaries and healthcare with the sole exception of trans care
What would you choose?
Although, honestly, since we’re in hypotheticals and foresight, Biden could have let them go without pay and possibly triggered a Bonus Army type scenario where the military protests.
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Agreed, and what we really need is to actually end the duopoly by changing the voting system to a more fairly representative one like ranked-choice or rated, in the first place. Voting third party will just increase the chance of Republicans winning if that third party is left-leaning, and no third party will get a majority vote if you can’t convince the vast majority of Americans to completely change their entire understanding of political parties that they’ve held on to for the past decades.
Just my opinion here, but the primary thing we should focus on is changing voting systems, because that’s what will actually allow us to have a third party be successful in the first place.
Voting systems are extremely hard to change in most states. But progressive candidates usually support voting changes too. So two birds with one stone. It will be a painful few cycles with the Republicans winning. But they have shown they will turn on each other rather fast. And once we show we just aren’t going to vote democrat or republican, momentum will build. Things can’t get much worse.
How exactly do we focus on changing voting systems? Obviously vote for Democrats who support giving power to the people. What if they don’t?
It works best when you start at more local levels.
Many states already require ranked-choice voting, and that makes it easier to get progressive candidates in positions like senator, as well as non-federal state positions. Smaller state elections are much easier to change than the entirety of federal elections, and are often influenced by door knocking campaigns, various charitable organizations, and community organizing.
Hell, this can even be done at the city level. The smaller the elections get, the easier it is to change them. But the more progressive smaller elections get, the easier it is to progressively impact other systems, and then get people in federal positions of power that are open to the idea.
For now, we’re effectively just stuck with what the Democrats are up for if we want any chance at actually having a better voting systems, but working up from local levels can be a very effective way to slowly push the changes on a federal level.
Well as long as the soldiers get their Christmas bonuses, I suppose a few thousand dead children is an acceptable price to pay. We wouldn’t want the soldiers to have their Christmas ruined, and it’s not like it would be the Republicans’ fault for politicizing a must-pass spending bill. Oh well, it’s not like trans kids are really human, a 9/11 worth of child corpses is fine. We wouldn’t want to ruin Christmas.
It doesn’t cover their hormone replacement and other trans care, but it still covers all their sickness and injuries.
Well as long as the soldiers get their Christmas bonuses, I suppose a few thousand dead children is an acceptable price to pay.
As though Democrats wouldn’t have voted for the anti-trans provision as a standalone bill.
I’m lost. He spoke against it, but signed it anyway. Did they give any rationalization for signing it?
Most of the replies here aren’t giving you a solid answer, though @[email protected] was close—so sorry about that.
At one point, the bill text included anti-refugee, anti-CRT, and other controversial provisions that Republicans added, but those were fortunately removed.
However, the anti-trans language was reportedly “slipped in” during the final stages and didn’t even appear in the bill summary. The bill itself has been described as “must pass,” which means it’s prioritized regardless of what’s in it.
Final takeaway: Bad actors in Congress added the language, and Biden didn’t care enough about trans rights to thoroughly review it.
Sources:
If he didn’t sign it then families would have just gone without coverage and the military would be unfunded until Trump entered office and signed it regardless. In fact, handing it off to the next congress could result in an even worse bill.
Paraphrasing here, but “we need to spend money on the military otherwise we won’t be safe”
Except that doesn’t really hold up since they could have sent it back to be modified and voted on again anyways.
“if we need to do it, you can fuck off with this shit and do it right” should have been the official explanation of a veto.
No, not enough time to send it back and the R’s knew exactly what they were doing here.
Democrats are willing to go into a government shutdown rather than cave. Biden should have fought harder.
Actually, Biden signed the congressional budget 5 days ago averting Shutdown. Democrats don’t want shutdown, Republicans do.
If only there was some way for him to stop it from happening… Well, Joe, at least you tried.
It’s not like his own opponent did something like that in the past because he didn’t like the text of the bill. Surely not…
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/vetoes/TrumpDJ.htm
