Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is bringing forth a bill that in many cases would bar transgender people from serving in the military.
While the proposal outlines a few exceptions, it seeks to disqualify anyone who identifies as transgender and who seeks or has undertaken gender reassignment surgery. A transgender person without a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria, Rubio’s draft says, can serve under their sex assigned at birth.
If passed and signed by President Joe Biden — an unlikely scenario — the law would also require the Secretary of Defense to limit the service member database to only collect sex assigned at birth and change any gender markers that “do not match a service member’s biological sex.”
