Sheila Jackson Lee: “Families care about their children, and it stuns me that the gentleman on the other side has indicated that he wants to…”

“Families care about their children, and it stuns me that the gentleman on the other side has indicated that he wants to take health decisions out of the hands of parents who are serving in the United States military, committed to laying their life down for America, and eliminate it to the point that the parents who love the military must leave the military and diminish our fighting force. Let me be clear. As relates to trans children and medical care, every major medical and mental health association in the United States, representing more than 1.3 million U.S. doctors, support age- appropriate gender-affirming care for transgender people. In addition, in the special needs of the soldiers and others in the United States military, there is no indication that money would be taken away from special needs children as relates to the particular needs of trans children. What it does say is that parents who love their children would be discriminated against depending on what their health need is. Therefore, I rise today in opposition to this ill-thought-out and ill-fated, I hope, amendment that clearly divides us as Americans, as members of the United States military, in that it goes against science and medicine because this affirming medical care has been accepted.…”