Opposing Ban on Transgender Members of Armed Forces

Floor Speech

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Mrs. HARTZLER. Mr. Speaker, let me tell you about a sharp, young patriot from my district.

She worked hard, earned straight A's, and was accepted into law school to join the JAG Corps. She, however, was denied entry into the military because she had bunions on her feet.

She is an amazing woman and a long-distance runner, but DOD's policy was clear that, due to the risk of future surgery, she could potentially be temporarily undeployable and, so, was denied entrance into military service. She did not meet the physical-mental-medical standards.

Another constituent was denied service because he had asthma. He, too, wanted to serve his country, but the health risk outweighed the benefits to the military. He did not meet the physical-mental-medical standards.

DOD's military exception standards state:

Individuals must be free of medical conditions or physical defects that may require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.

Our all-volunteer military is the greatest military force in the world, and we must allow it--we must allow it--to make the best medical and military judgment about what medical conditions should qualify or disqualify an individual from serving. We should not carve out exceptions for an entire population.

Military service is a privilege, not a right. That is why Secretary Mattis reviewed and issued a new policy on transgender service and the medical condition of gender dysphoria.

The policy is not a ban, and it allows transgender servicemembers to serve in their biological sex. The Mattis policy does not kick anyone out of the military for being transgender, nor does it give preferential treatment to transgender persons. All persons, unless grandfathered or granted a waiver, must serve in their birth gender.

It is a fair policy, allowing transgender individuals to serve openly as long as they are willing to serve in their biological sex and they can meet the medical behavioral standards.

This resolution we are voting on today is riddled with inaccuracies. First, as I just stated, the policy is not a ban.

Second, it claims there is a global medical consensus that transgender care is effective, safe, and reliable. That is not true. RAND, the Mayo Clinic, CMS, and others have all determined that there is not enough quality evidence to be able to say that. And there are valid concerns.

There are costs as well. The Department of Defense announced already that they have spent $8 million on those individuals who have identified as transgender last year, and that money has been spent on psychotherapy, on sex change operations. That is money that could have been spent on bullets, body armor for our troops.

Third, the resolution claims there is not an adverse effect on military readiness. This is false. The individual readiness of those undergoing treatment for gender dysphoria will be impacted. It takes over 260 days just to recover from the surgery.

Individual readiness directly impacts the readiness of our forces, so the diagnosis and treatment for transgender personnel takes them away from their jobs for an indeterminate amount of time. This lost deployment time means someone else will have to step forward and go in their place. This is unfair.

The military has valid reasons for excluding people with certain medical conditions from service. It is not the job of Congress to dictate what medical conditions the military should accept.

We should not degrade the efficiency and lethality of our Armed Forces. This resolution is riddled with false claims, and I urge my colleagues to oppose its passage.

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