Rep. Matt Gaetz may have tipped off President Trump’s move to ban transgender individuals from serving in the military when the freshman congressman appeared on “Pensacola Speaks” on July 13.
Gaetz talked about the narrow defeat of an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have blocked the military from paying for gender reassignment surgery or hormone therapy for both service members and their families.
“We had one of the closest votes in my tenure… Many of our listeners may not know, but their taxpayer dollars currently go to gender reassignment surgeries for members of the military, so if someone currently in the military wants to have a sex change operation, the American taxpayer pays for that,” he said.
“A group of conservatives got together and we offered an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to end that practice. And despite a substantial Republican majority in the Congress, we lost that amendment by five votes. By a margin of five votes, the American taxpayer will still pay for people’s gender reassignment surgery.”
The close vote may have influenced the White House – but not as some might have thought. Instead of siding with the House majority, President Trump announced on Twitter that he wants to ban transgender individuals from serving in the military.
@realDonaldTrump Jul 26
After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow……@realDonaldTrump Jul 26
….Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming…..@realDonaldTrump Jul 26
….victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you
The announcement caught the Pentagon off guard. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had announced last month that he was delaying any decision regarding transgenders in the military for six months to study the issue further leaders from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps had request the delay.
Today Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Joseph Dunford informed service members that there will be “no modifications to the current policy until the President’s direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidelines.”