President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to immediately stop “transgender lunacy” and make it “official policy ” to only recognize two genders, male and female.
“With the stroke of my pen on day one, we’re going to stop the transgender lunacy,” Trump told supporters at AmericaFest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday, according to a video shared by C-Span.
“I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools,” he said, drawing cheers from the crowd.
“Under the Trump administration, it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” he continued as he also vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports.”
“Doesn’t sound too complicated, does it?”
Trump railed off against transgender rights several days after the Senate gave the green light to the Pentagon’s ginormous $895 billion annual budget on Wednesday, which includes provisions that strip coverage of transgender medical treatments for children of military members.
The Senate passed the 1,800-page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in an 85-14 vote, moving the measure onto President Biden’s desk.
Every fiscal year, which starts on Oct. 1, Congress is tasked with passing the NDAA to authorize defense spending and specify expenditures. This year’s bill comes two months late and amounts to a roughly 1% uptick over last year’s budget.
While NDAAs historically garner bipartisan support, Republicans managed to slip the provision on transgender healthcare through, much to the displeasure of Democrats.
Specifically, the NDAA blocks the military’s health care service Tricare from footing the bill for “gender transition” coverage for service members’ children who are under the age of 18.
Twenty-one Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), voted against the provision, which Baldwin claimed would impact anywhere from 6,000 to 7,000 children of service members.
There are some 10,000 transgender youth ages 6 to 22 with parents active in the military, according to an estimate from the Modern Military Association of America.