Democrats Fret Over Defense Bill’s Provision Banning Sex Changes for Minors

The House is expected to vote on a yearly defense bill on Wednesday, which includes a ban on sex-mutilating drugs and procedures for minors. 

The provision of the 1,800-page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) prohibits coverage under TRICARE, a healthcare program for service members, for “certain medical procedures for children that could result in sterilization.” 

“Affirming hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and other medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization may not be provided to a child under the age of 18,” the bill reads.

The legislation details how $895.2 billion will be allocated toward defense and national security, with much of it focusing on bipartisan quality-of-life improvements for service members as the military continues to struggle with recruitment.

Now, Democrats are faced with either supporting the bill as is, or putting up a fuss over the Republican-led provision banning experimental sex change drugs and procedures for confused minors. The internal battle come after Republicans successfully campaigned on Democrats’ transgender extremism.

Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) put out a statement on Sunday saying he would reconsider his support of the bill because of the transgender provision.

“Blanketly denying health care to people who clearly need it, just because of a biased notion against transgender people, is wrong,” Smith claimed. “This provision injected a level of partisanship not traditionally seen in defense bills. Speaker Johnson is pandering to the most extreme elements of his party to ensure that he retains his speakership. In doing so, he has upended what had been a bipartisan process.”

READ MORE: Biden Administration Promotes Transgender Sex-Change Surgery, Puberty Blockers for Minors

The side effects for sex change drugs and procedures can be severe, including irreversible mutilation and infertility. Some of these so-called treatments include double mastectomies (the removal of healthy breasts), female and male genital mutilation and removal, facial feminization and masculinization, hormone treatments, and puberty blockers that can cause chemical sterilization. Puberty blockers can also have long-term impact on bone growth, bone density, and growth spurts, according to Mayo Clinic. 

Many people who have undergone these sex change drugs and procedures as minors and later decided to reverse course, called detransitioners, have begun speaking out about the irreversible physical damage and mental torment they have experienced. 

RELATED: Detransitioner: Genital Surgery ‘Destroyed My Life’ — ‘You Need to Be Insane’ to Think This Helps Patients

In the United States, the top-down push for minors to obtain sex-mutilating drugs and surgeries under the misleading moniker “gender-affirming care” is clear, promulgated by President Joe Biden’s White House, academia, large hospitals, and major medical organizations.

Transgender activists frequently claim that such sex-mutilating drugs and procedures for confused minors reduce suicides and improve mental health — dubious claims which increasingly appear untrue as more studies and data come to light. 

Other research has indicated that a majority of children who are confused about their sex grow out of that feeling by the time they become adults. European countries that pushed sex change drugs and surgeries for minors before the United States are notably reversing course over concerns about long-term impacts. 

At the root, these actors, along with the proliferation of gender ideology on social media, ultimately promote the false idea that human beings can be a different sex than what they were born as. Even further, the gender ideology complex claims these individuals should take sex-change drugs and get sex-change procedures to align their outward appearance with how they feel on the inside.

While the push toward transgenderism is heavily ideological, a report released in December 2020 found that the U.S. sex reassignment surgery market size was valued at $267 million in 2019 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 14.4 percent from 2020 to 2027.

President-elect Trump has vowed to reverse course on the Biden administration’s embrace of gender ideology and has promised to protect women’s sports and spaces, and to protect children from mutilating sex-change drugs and procedures. Many of his cabinet selections have a history of supporting the biological reality of two sexes, and with control of the House and Senate, Republicans have expressed plans to do the same.

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.