Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have filed an amendment to the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act to delay implementation of the ban ordered by President Donald Trump of transgender people serving in the military, the Hill reported Monday.
The publication reported that the amendment would delay implementation of the ban until Spring 2018, 60 days after Secretary of Defense James Mattis is scheduled to conclude his review of some aspects of Trump’s decision.
Details of the amendment are unclear — neither Gillibrand’s nor Collins’ office responded to TPM’s requests for comment. Rachel Hoff, communications director for the Senate Armed Services Committee, told TPM in an email: “We are not commenting on amendments at this stage.”
In July, Trump tweeted that “the United States Government will not accept or allow […] Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.” However, the order was only formally accepted by military leadership a month later, when it was issued in non-tweet form.
Trump ordered the military to cease accepting openly transgender people for service, and to stop paying for medical procedures related to gender transition. However, he allowed Mattis some leeway to evaluate how to treat currently serving transgender troops, who were allowed to serve openly near the end of the Obama administration.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Gillibrand and Collins’ amendment would “try to protect the transgender troops.” On Saturday, it characterized the amendment as an attempt to “roll back” and “counter” Trump’s order.
On Friday, the Washington Examiner reported that the amendment “would force the Pentagon to complete a six-month study on transgender recruiting that it has shelved before it makes any personnel policy changes.”
Still, an unnamed Capitol Hill source told the Washington Blade the same day that “a determination on content of the amendment hasn’t been made final, although the more modest proposal to reverse the Trump ban seems more likely as opposed to a military civil rights bill.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the chief legislator responsible for the massive military planning and spending bill, told the Post Saturday of the amendment that “right now it’s not necessary.”
Gillibrand promised on Aug. 24 that she would introduce legislation to counter the ban.
To all trans men and women serving bravely in the military: I plan to introduce legislation to fight back. We'll keep raising our voices. https://t.co/kvKLXe1aN4
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) August 24, 2017
McCain and Collins were among the many Republican lawmakers who objected to the nature or content of Trump’s ban, especially that it interrupted the military’s own study of transgender troops.
What took them so long?
I see from the photo that we can count on Sen. Lieberman’s vote.
But seriously, tell me again…
Which party – that values banning transgender troops over national security – is captive to “identity politics”?
Can’t wait to see Trump stump for Eliot Cutler in Maine’s gubernatorial election.
You don’t need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.
Ya I chuckled when I saw that picture. My first thought was TPM used it to rile up all the Lieberman haters on this site. They even found one that had our half term Senator Brown in it. Whatever the joke was I guess he did not get it. Old Wrentham Scottie was never the sharpest tool in the shed.