U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) is cosponsoring a bill prohibiting transgender people and those diagnosed with gender dysphoria from serving in the U.S. military.
The Ensuring Military Readiness Act was introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to build on Trump-era recruitment restrictions that the Biden administration repealed. The act adds "more stringent requirements and revamps the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System to ensure all service members' gender markers match their biological sex," according to a joint statement released by Rubio.
"The world is on the brink of a major conflict, and America's military must be ready to fight at a moment's notice," Tuberville said in the statement. "Now is not the time to socially experiment with our armed forces at the expense of readiness, morale, and our national defense."
The act allows for those diagnosed with gender dysphoria after joining the military to remain in service as long as he or she doesn't undergo transgender surgery and "remains deployable within applicable retention standards for their biological sex."
"The military maintains rigorous mental and physical requirements because our service members must be as capable and deployable as possible," Tuberville continued. "Those requirements should include all conditions that make a service member physically unfit to serve, including the long and expensive process of gender transition."
U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) are original cosponsors of the bill. U.S. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) plans to introduce companion legislation in the House.
"The military has strict standards for who can and cannot qualify to serve. For example, under President Biden, you can't serve with a peanut allergy," Rubio said. "Biden has turned our military into a woke social experiment. It is a stupid way to go about protecting our nation. We need to spend more time thinking about how to counter threats like China, Russia, and North Korea and less time thinking about pronouns."
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