Congressional Democrats have a long and tortured history of betraying the LGBTQ community. And as the soul-searching over the loss of the presidential race continues — including attempts to blame transgender issues — we've seen just how skittish some Democrats are. Last week's vote in the House of Representatives on the National Defense Authorization Act was just the latest betrayal. A total of 81 Democrats voted for the NDAA, which contains a provision that bans gender-affirming care for minors who receive TRICARE health insurance through their active-duty military parents. The provision in the House bill is similar to one in the Senate version that passed before the election, and the Senate passed it again Wednesday 85 to 14. Of course, prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors is a central piece of Project 2025, the authoritarian document that the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups drafted to serve as a blueprint, particularly if Donald Trump won election to a second term — he did — and Republicans took control of Congress — they did.
President Joe Biden should veto the bill.
In the House vote, 13 of those 81 Democrats were from California, and four were from the Bay Area. The local representatives were longtime allies such as outgoing Congressmember Anna Eshoo (Palo Alto), and Congressmembers Zoe Lofgren (San Jose), Jimmy Panetta (Santa Cruz), and Mike Thompson (Napa). Ted Lieu of Los Angeles was another longtime ally who voted for the bill. The others were: Pete Aguilar (Santa Bernardino) Salud Carbajal (Santa Barbara), Jim Costa (Fresno), Josh Harder (Stockton), Mike Levin and Scott Peters (San Diego), Raul Ruiz (Riverside), and Norma Torres (San Bernardino).
Even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), who aspires to be speaker should the Democrats take control of the chamber in 2026, was one of the yes votes on the NDAA. He's no Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), that's for sure. She did not vote for the bill.
Shame on all of them.
Some of those voting for the bill were critical of the part targeting trans youth, and noted the NDAA is one of the major bills adopted by Congress each year. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) inserted the anti-trans language into the bill, according to reports. We suspect it was because he knew it would divide Democrats and be used to label those who voted against it "soft on defense." Already, Johnson has put trans people on notice by formalizing a new rule that prevents people from using Capitol restrooms that do not align with their gender at birth. That, as readers will recall, was a direct affront to Congressmember-elect Sarah McBride (D-Delaware), the first out trans person elected to Congress. (She will have her own bathroom in her office, so won't be directly affected by the rule, but trans staff members and trans people visiting the Capitol will.)
We've seen these machinations before from Democrats. The NDAA includes pay raises for servicemembers and other provisions. The problem lies in add-ons that are successful in targeting specific groups, like the trans community in this case. Democratic lawmakers face a tough decision, and we would argue that they should have voted against it — the NDAA would have passed anyway, as it only needed a simple majority vote.
Let's recall that Democratic votes helped pass 1993's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy prohibiting gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. Indeed, former senator Sam Nunn (D-Georgia) was one of the main proponents of the policy, meant to be a compromise of then-President Bill Clinton's campaign promise to allow open service. (Once Clinton got to the White House, he was made to realize that his pledge would not be attainable, hence the tradeoff: gays and lesbians could serve in the military, as long as they stayed in the closet.) That law took 17 years to repeal.
In 1996, scared of some states moving forward on allowing same-sex marriage, Congress put the kibosh on that by passing the Defense of Marriage Act, again on Clinton's watch. There were Democratic votes for that too, though famously, then California Democratic senators Barbara Boxer and the late Dianne Feinstein opposed it. A major portion of DOMA was successfully struck down thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013. Same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide in 2015. The rest of DOMA was repealed when President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022.
Modern Military Association of America, the successor group to the old Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which works with LGBTQ service members, sent out an email this week reminding LGBTQ service members of several other anti-LGBTQ policies likely to be implemented. These include the aforementioned health care vote and reinstating the Department of Defense ban on transgender individuals from military service.
"President Trump's previous policy only went as far as banning transgender people from joining the military and preventing those currently serving from taking steps to transition," the organization stated, referring to Trump's ban on trans service in 2017 during his first term. "We have concerns a new ban would attempt to go further, expanding to separate the approximately 15,000 transgender active service members from duty and/or eliminating gender-affirming care for service members and their dependents."
MMAA summed it up succinctly, "With a new presidential administration on the horizon, we expect a resurgence of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and policies."
But given the number of Democrats who voted for that defense bill, we'd add that it's not just Republicans that the LGBTQ community needs to be concerned about. The Democratic Party does need to do a self-examination on lessons to be learned from the November 5 election. It does not need to scapegoat trans people or the wider LGBQ community as part of that process. In fact, those Democrats who hemmed and hawed about their yes vote on the NDAA should have voted no and had the wherewithal to explain that it's not OK for Republicans to throw trans people under the bus. Instead, they themselves did just that. The election result shows that Democrats have a hard time talking about issues, especially ones favored by liberals. That's what party leadership needs to look at — coming up with better ideas aimed at working people and communities of all kinds, including us.
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