Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that aims to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military.
The bill, named the “Ensuring Military Readiness Act,” would prevent anyone with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria from serving in the military unless they have been stable in their biological sex for 36 months before joining the military or are enlisted and stable living as their biological sex.
The legislation would allow any transgender person who is otherwise eligible for duty and does not have a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria to serve as their biological sex.
“The military has strict standards for who can and cannot qualify to serve. For example, under President Biden, you can’t serve with a peanut allergy. Biden has turned our military into a woke social experiment. It is a stupid way to go about protecting our nation. We need to spend more time thinking about how to counter threats like China, Russia, and North Korea and less time thinking about pronouns,” GOP Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said in a statement about the legislation.
Along with Rubio, Senators Marsha Blackburn of Mississippi, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, and Mike Braun of Indiana have cosponsored the bill.
Conservative organizations, including Heritage Action, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, CatholicVote, and the American Principles Project, have expressed their support and endorsement for the legislation.
“Service in the U.S. military is a privilege, not a right,” Terry Schilling, President of the American Principles Project, said in a statement. “To ensure effectiveness in combat, it makes sense that our armed forces would only accept those who are physically and mentally fit to serve.”
“Unfortunately, in recent years woke politicians have undermined this goal, turning our military into a radical social experiment and injecting gender ideology into nearly every facet of its operations. Biological reality and proven fitness standards should not be thrown aside at the whims of a political agenda. Sen. Rubio’s Ensuring Military Readiness Act is an important step toward restoring the military to its rightful mission, and APP urges all members of Congress to support it,” the statement continued.
