US House of Representatives rejects bid to make Trump’s trans military ban law
A law banning trans people from serving in the US military has been rejected (Getty Images, stock)
The US House of Representatives has rejected an amendment that would have written Donald Trump‘s ban on trans people serving in the military into law.
The measure, sponsored by Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert, was defeated by 217 votes to 212 on Tuesday (21 July), with four Republicans joining Democrats to kill it, as reported by The Hill.
It had sought to codify the executive order Trump signed in January, which claimed that expressing a “false ‘gender identity'” different from a person’s sex was incompatible with the standards required for military service.
The order also barred people from using facilities designated for the opposite sex.
The amendment was attached to the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual must-pass bill setting policy and authorising funding for the Department of Defense.
Republicans have spent years pushing policies targeting transgender Americans, arguing they are intended to protect women’s sports, parental rights and military readiness.
Democrats have broadly opposed the measures, saying they discriminate against trans people and infringe on their rights.
Trump regularly brings up trans people in his speeches, often when there is no link to what he is talking about.
Last week, while talking about how “respected” the US is, he said: “We had transgender for everybody, men in women’s sports, crime ravaging our cities, and the whole world was laughing at us as a nation. But not anymore.”
He has also been called out for claiming a law signed by Joe Biden offered $52billion in funding to improve computer chip manufacturing, but only if the companies were run by trans executives.
“We had this ridiculous CHIPS Act where you give billions of dollars to a company,” Trump said, referring to the CHIPS and Science Act that was signed into law in 2022 by Biden.
“And of course, the standards were so high – if you weren’t transgender, as an example, you didn’t qualify,” Trump falsely continued.
“So they’d get the money, they’d hire, they’d look all over for transgender people to run the company, large portions. They couldn’t find them. They weren’t into the chip-making business, I guess, right? They had other things on their mind.”
US Representative Doris Matsui, who worked on the CHIPS Act, told The Guardian after: “Donald Trump is lying.”
Matsui went on: “He’s deliberately spewing disinformation to incite hatred and divide Americans while attacking one of the most important investments we’ve made in American manufacturing, economic growth, and national security.”
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