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Update 8:20PM EST: This evening the House of Representatives voted 209 to 214 to defeat the amendment denying the Pentagon funds for “sex change” surgeries.

Sarah McBride, spokesperson for the LGBT lobby group Human Rights Campaign, reported, “If only three Members of Congress had voted yes instead [i.e., FOR the measure denying taxpayer funding to the Pentagon for transsexual “sex reassignment surgeries”], this dangerous and discriminatory anti-transgender amendment would have passed.”

More than 20 Republicans joined the Democrats in voting to defeat the measure. Pro-life Catholic Illinois Democrat Rep. Dan Lipinski, who is pro-life, also voted on the side of the LGBT lobby to defeat the amendment.

July 13, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Missouri Republican Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler’s amendment to deny the Pentagon taxpayer funds for transsexual “sex reassignment surgeries” has advanced for consideration to the full House of Representatives.

Hartzler’s amendment to the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) follows another that she withdrew last week targeting the Obama-imposed policy allowing gender-confused “transgender” individuals to serve openly in the U.S. military.

The new amendment “would make it so ‘funds available to the Department of Defense may not be used to provide medical treatment (other than mental health treatment) related to gender transition to a person entitled to medical care,’” The Hill reported.

The homosexual-”transgender” lobby organization Human Rights Campaign (HRC) today railed against the new Hartzler amendment, saying the revised amendment “was given the green light by House Republican leadership late Wednesday. Following official ratification of the leadership’s decision by the House Rules Committee later tonight, the amendment will head to the House floor.”

Defense Secretary James Mattis has delayed implementation of the DoD “transgender” policy for six months pending a review. The policy, which was imposed without congressional legislation or debate, was slated to go into full effect July 1. Mattis reportedly rejected a request by the Army and Navy (which oversees the Marines) to delay the policy for two years, causing conservatives like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to grumble.

Outrage is building across the country, at least among traditionalists and opponents of political correctness in the military, at the Pentagon’s continued celebration of “LGBT pride” under Trump, and especially the Army’s new “transgender” training guidelines. To prepare for “transgender inclusion,” the Army is reportedly instructing women soldiers to accept sharing public showers, restrooms and barracks with gender-confused “transgenders,” including men who call themselves “women” yet still possess their inborn male genitalia intact.

“The Army Directive orders all personnel to accept transsexuals having a new ‘gender marker’ in bathrooms, showers and other private areas, showing zero concern for the feelings of women exposed to ‘gender pretenders’ taking advantage of the situation,” Elaine Donnelly writes in a new Center for Military Readiness special report calling on Trump and the Military to “Revoke Problematic ‘Transgender’ Policy Directives and Instructions” to the troops.

Medical care?

Rep. Hartzler quickly pulled her original NDAA amendment in late June “to give the DoD an opportunity to address this problem internally, reserving the right to proceed with this effort on the House floor in July.” But conservatives continued to support a rollback on Obama’s military “transgender” policies, and Federal News Radio reported June 27 that “there’s still a possibility the [Hartzler] amendment could come up again when the bill goes to the House floor [in July].”

Instead, Hartzler issued a scaled-back amendment targeting the DoD’s coverage of body-disfiguring “sex reassignment surgeries” as “medical care necessary to achieve stability in the preferred gender.”  

“By recruiting and allowing ‘transgender’ individuals to serve in our military we are subjecting taxpayers to high medical costs, including up to $130,000 per transition surgery, lifetime hormone treatments, and additional surgeries to address the high percentage of individuals who experience complications,” Rep. Hartzler said, adding that “transgender” surgeries alone could cost U.S. taxpayers $1.35 billion over the next 10 years.

In a press release, the Missouri Congresswoman said that with that money the DoD could comparatively purchase: “13 F-35's, 14 Super Hornet F-18’s, 2 B-21 long-range strike bombers, 8 KC-46's, all A-10 wing replacements or increased end strength of our troops.”

The Rules Committee’s decision along party lines not to block Hartzler’s amendment banning taxpayer funding for the body-disfiguring “trans” surgeries “sets up a Thursday fight on the House floor over ‘transgender’ rights in the military and, possibly, more broadly,” according to The Hill.

HRC called the amendment “outrageous” and protested: “It is imperative that the House of Representatives reject this harmful amendment.”

Meanwhile, the conservative site Red State celebrated Hartzler’s legislation.

“[O]ur national security is too important to use our military as a lab of social justice experimentation,” writes Red State’s Susan Wright. “Transgenders got the green light to openly indulge in their alternate lifestyle on the government dime, thanks to the Obama administration’s push to destabilize American might.”

The American Family Association is calling on Americans to “Urge your U.S. Representative to vote for Congresswoman Hartzler's amendment to put an end to the Obama administration's military transgender mandate” by calling their U.S. Representative at (202) 224-3121.