Rep. Sarah McBride on Wednesday criticized congressional Republicans as being “obsessed with trans people” forward of a vote on bills that might limit youth access to gender identification care and penalize well being staff who present it.
“I actually think they think more about trans people than trans people think about trans people,” stated McBride, who’s the primary out transgender member of Congress.
“They are consumed with this, and they are extreme on it,” the Delaware Democrat added.
Since President Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second time period, he has made restricting access to well being care for trans folks and diminishing their existence a precedence.
The president has ordered trans folks to be faraway from the navy, excised any mention of them from federal web sites, eliminated them from hate crime surveys and labored to limit their access to youth sports activities.
Despite the outsized consideration positioned on trans folks by the administration, they solely signify round 0.6% of the US inhabitants aged 13 and older, in accordance to the Williams Institute, a suppose tank at UCLA Law that gives scientific analysis on gender identification and sexual orientation.
One of the brand new GOP bills, spearheaded by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, would amend present regulation to make it a felony for well being care suppliers to supply types of gender identification care to transgender youth, together with hormone remedy and puberty blockers.
The invoice would additionally open the door for felony penalties to individuals who assist facilitate that care for minors, together with dad and mom or guardians.
The invoice is the end result of a yearslong effort on the a part of Greene, a Georgia Republican, to limit youth access to such care. Trump, with whom Greene has recently fallen out, made anti-transgender insurance policies a central platform of his profitable presidential marketing campaign.
Civil rights teams together with the American Civil Liberties Union described Greene’s invoice as “the most extreme anti-trans legislation ever considered by Congress.”
A second invoice, sponsored by GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, prohibits federal Medicaid funding for “gender transition procedures for minors.”
McBride stated Wednesday that Republicans have been “trying to politicize a misunderstood community and misunderstood care.”
“No one’s healthcare should be politicized,” she stated
NCS’s Alison Main contributed to this report.