House Moves To Block Taxpayer-Funded Trans Surgeries For Military Dependents

By Mary Margaret Olohan | Daily Wire

The House of Representatives is moving to intervene in a case centered on the use of military health insurance to cover transgender transition procedures for the dependents of military members.

On Friday, The Daily Wire is first reporting, the House filed an appeal with the United States District Court for the District of Maine in Doe v. Austin, a case dealing with two males who identify as transgender women, are dependents of retired service members, and are receiving so-called “gender-affirming” health care benefits through TRICARE, the military’s healthcare plan.

“Tax dollars should not support procedures and treatments that could permanently harm and sterilize young people,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told The Daily Wire on Monday.

“This year’s NDAA takes a critical and necessary step to protect the children of American service members by adding a statutory prohibition regarding TRICARE coverage that is related to the case in Maine,” he said. “House Republicans will not relent in taking action to protect America’s children from radical gender ideology and experimental drugs.”

The plaintiffs are challenging a 1976 federal statute restricting the military health system from covering surgeries that “improves physical appearance” without “significantly restor[ing] functions.” Under that statute, “sex gender changes” are specifically prohibited.

Democrats and left-wing activists have argued that such transgender procedures are “life-saving” and prevent people with gender dysphoria from committing suicide. Republicans, including Johnson, have vehemently pushed back against these claims in the context of children, pointing out that these procedures can sterilize children, and arguing that the military’s focus should be on defending the United States.

Johnson recently led efforts to block taxpayer funding of gender transition surgeries for children who get their medical care through TRICARE by fighting to include a Senate provision, led by Republican Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina, in this year’s NDAA. That language states: “medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization may not be provided to a child under the age of 18.”

“I’m proud of the work we did in the NDAA to protect children from radical, woke policies in our military,” Budd told The Daily Wire. “This is an important fight and I’m thankful for Speaker Johnson standing up to keep it in the final bill.”

The House passed the NDAA, including the TRICARE provision, on December 11 by a 281 to 140 vote.

In light of that action, and given that the Justice Department has now indicated that it wants to settle the case, Johnson believes the House has an obligation to quickly intervene and defend the statute at issue in Doe v. Austin, specifically by filing an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

A district court had ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in November, saying that the statute’s exclusion of gender surgeries violated the rights of these two males who identify as women and want their gender surgeries and hormones covered by TRICARE. Johnson’s office argues that the district court ruling is partially due to the Justice Department’s half-hearted attempt to defend the constitutionality of the statute.

“For nearly two years, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has halfheartedly defended the constitutionality of the federal statute at issue,” the filing states. “As this Court put it, DOJ ‘ma[de] only technical and procedural objections … and d[id] not engage with the merits.’”

“Now that the Court has rejected the limited arguments DOJ did assert, and ruled in Plaintiffs’ favor on the merits (essentially a foregone conclusion given DOJ’s failure to substantively defend the statute), DOJ’s position appears to be that this litigation may be resolved via settlement,” the filing continues. “DOJ’s lukewarm defense appears to have become a full-blown abandonment of its duty to defend the constitutionality of federal law in this case.”

CLICK HERE To Read The Full Motion To Intervene

First published in Daily Wire