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Throughout the past month Congress began discussions on several military and governmental funding bills with sweeping bans on gender affirming care for federal employees, their families, ICE detainees, veterans, military troops, and more. Mirroring a failed attempt to ban trans Medicaid coverage earlier this year, this move represents the latest push to ban life-saving trans healthcare by fascist politicians and liberal sympathizers. This comes as Republicans also hope to deflect the public’s attention from Trump's growing Epstein pedophilia scandals with genocidal attacks on trans healthcare.

These attacks include bans on funding for trans healthcare in funding bills for Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, general financial services for the government and the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE.

Parts of Congress went into recess early to avoid votes on releasing the Epstein files, and will stay out for most of August. They must pass legislation funding the government through bills like these by Sept. 30 in order to avoid a shutdown. The government was last funded by a continuing resolution that passed this March, with the help of some Democrats in the Senate despite furious calls from grassroots activists against caving to Republicans.

The bills are HR 3944, funding Veterans Affairs; HR 4213, funding the Department of Homeland Security; HR 4016, regulating funding the Department of Defense; and the yet-unnumbered FY26 Financial Services and General Government bill, restricting funding for various sectors of the federal government.

The latter bill is the most sweeping in its restrictions, with a press release from the House Appropriations Committee boasting that it will prohibit “the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program from covering puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or surgical procedures for gender affirming care.”

Additionally, this bill also contains a ban on the display of flags other than the United States flag, bans funding for abortions, attacks harm reduction programs for drug users, restricts a vague category of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ trainings, tightens restrictions on immigration, and implements racist attacks on anything associated with China while promoting the ‘lab leak’ COVID-19 conspiracy theory. This bill by and large contains provisions struck out of Trump’s massive reconciliation bill albeit watered down in severity with less sweeping restrictions and cuts.

The other three bills are no less severe in their impact on gender affirming care. HR 4213 includes a blanket ban on gender affirming care for immigrants locked in ICE custody, something especially troubling in light of masked ICE agents kidnapping both documented and undocumented immigrants – as well as American citizens – and subjecting them to horrific conditions before deporting them, including to countries they’ve never set foot in. This mirrors actions already taken with this administration against trans prisoners in Florida. It is no coincidence that this bill also includes an additional millions of dollars of funding for ICE in the next fiscal year.

HR 4016 is similarly awful, banning funding for gender affirming care for all active duty troops and their families. It also mandates that none of the funds be used to abolish or reconfigure Guantanamo Bay, the United States military prison in Cuba infamous for torturing inmates. Notably, Guantanamo Bay is also used to detain immigrants for years, including transgender immigrants as of earlier this year. The bill also bans COVID-19 vaccination mandates for soldiers and their families, while nevertheless granting tens of billions of dollars for all branches of the military and federal agencies.

HR 3944 has a unique set of worries and considerations. While up until July 16 it contained provisions funding for banning gender affirming care for veterans, restricting abortions, and restricting healthcare for undocumented immigrants, the most recent provision changed this. Reported to the Senate with an amendment presented by Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), there is no longer any restriction on any forms of gender affirming care, abortions, or immigrant healthcare.

However, this bill is far from safe. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) submitted an amendment to reinstate the abortion restrictions, and while none restricting gender affirming care have been submitted yet, it is entirely possible – and even likely – that one will be added, especially as it gets closer to the currently unknown voting date. Adding anti-trans and anti-abortion measures into laws at the last minute is a frequently used tactic in state legislatures such as Georgia and North Carolina.

Currently only two of these bills have received floor votes in the House, both passing along party lines. However, both times several Democrats defected to vote alongside Republicans. For HR 4016, Representatives Don Davis (NC), Jared Golden (ME), Vicente Gonzalez (TX), Adam Gray (CA), and Marie Perez (WA) all voted to pass it. For HR 3944, only Golden and Perez voted to pass it.

In the Senate this week, the Veterans Affairs bill, without the anti-trans provisions included, passed its first hurdle towards passage with a 90-8 procedural vote with the support of the vast majority of Democrats. Senators can use their leverage to ensure anti-trans language remains out of the bill before it passes without anti-trans language being reintroduced.

Late last year, 45 Democratic Senators and 146 House Democrats demanded that appropriations bills for this year’s budget not include anti-LGBTQ “poison pill” riders, forming a block strong enough to filibuster any harmful bill. Today, in an environment where many Democrats have been led to falsely believe that supporting trans rights costs them elections, this near unanimous opposition has quieted to a whimper.

Throughout all this, leading Gay Inc organizations have remained completely silent on these bills. Few politicians outside of the Congressional Equality Caucus – and only on social media – have spoken out about the impacts these have, and some Democrats have voted for them.

Trans News Network reached out to the five Democratic Representatives who voted to pass the House version of the VA bill, and ten other Congressmembers across both chambers, including Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). No Congressmember responded to the requests for comment. This article will be updated accordingly if any responses are received.

These bills make it clear that Republicans’ draconian assaults on transgender rights will not deescalate anytime soon. As seen with their furious attempts earlier this year to ban trans people from Medicaid, far-right legislators and the oligarchs who back them will stop at nothing to prevent trans people from receiving life-saving healthcare. Politicians do not have our backs, and will only take action when they are given no other choice.

Readers are advised to put pressure on their legislators — not only through consistent and nonstop outreach, but by staging protests in front of their offices and making it as clear as possible that this cannot pass

Readers can take inspiration from the recent successful grassroots campaign to pressure Democrats to kill an anti-trans provision with the Byrd rule, which stripped the trans Medicaid ban from Trump’s megabill passed earlier this month. Funding bills cannot become law without the help of Senate Democrats. Unlike the reconciliation process used to pass the GOP megabill, as these require 60 votes to get past the filibuster.

The most effective strategies could involve readers organizing grassroots campaigns that encourage trans people and their allies to push Democrats through emails, phone calls, and pressure through town halls or protests. It has to be clear that no bill including deadly bans on trans healthcare nor bills attacking trans rights are acceptable under any circumstances.

During the month of August, Congress will be on a long recess as members visit their districts with town halls and other events. Earlier this year, some trans activists disrupted in-person town halls to push Democrats to speak out more for trans rights, such as against Rep. Brad Sherman and Rep. Laura Friedman, both representing Los Angeles. As the attacks against our lives escalate, grassroots confrontation of politicians who throw trans people under the bus must similarly escalate.

But the first step to organizing any such push is the same as the first step of any successful activist campaign: organizing your local community as part of a broader international grassroots movement to save trans lives through community solidarity and direct action. Organizing is essential, as these attacks on marginalized livelihoods will not cease even if temporary relief is found through positive legislative policies.

So long as a hierarchical structure of capital exists, and so long as the iron fist of totalitarian states are in control of the worlds’ resources, marginalized people will never be free. The gentry’s pursuit of infinite growth will deplete everyone but those within their class of means to live. The only way out is to recognize that the gentry have no strength if the rest of us do not give them it.

There are plenty of resources out there for getting into organizing, particularly from radical perspectives. The podcast It Could Happen Here has an episode introducing listeners to organizing by informing them that they already know how to organize, and have the tools to do so.

Trans News Network’s sister publication The Free Radical conducted an interview with a leading organizer in the Twin Cities revealing some strategies for newcomers to get involved, as well as what types of local groups they should seek out. Other guides are present on each article within The Free Radical.

There is only one way to prevent the endless fascist terror threatening the lives of millions — to remove the very means of their oppression. This can be achieved, and it can even be achieved within our lifetimes. Solidarity among marginalized people internationally is the way to pursue this, not by placing trust in the hands of a small number of powerful people. There are no heroes in this struggle, there are only people fighting to live their lives. This must include you.

—Edited by Mady Castigan and David Forbes

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