Jill Tokuda: “The last-minute effort to deny critical healthcare to military children diagnosed with gender dysphoria is a shameful…”

“The last-minute effort to deny critical healthcare to military children diagnosed with gender dysphoria is a shameful attack on military families who deserve better from their elected Representatives. Our military families deserve our support for the sacrifices they make, not our intervention into their deeply personal healthcare decisions, and certainly not those involving their children. For transgender people, gender-affirming care is healthcare. To deny them this care is to deny that they exist. The reality is that they do exist, and there are thousands of military families with transgender children. There are 15,000 transgender individuals who wear the uniform. They deserve, like any child in our country, to be their true, authentic selves and to receive the care that helps them to live freely. As a mother, I cannot idly stand by and vote to deny healthcare to children who need it, nor can I stand by while my colleagues use transgender people to score cheap political points. To pass a bill dedicated to the quality of life of military families while stripping away healthcare from their children is not just ironic, but it is twisted, cruel, and plain wrong. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against the NDAA so that we can remove this discriminatory provision and truly, truly stand with our military families.”