The Transphobic Mask Is Off: The goal is a ban on all trans health care and the end of civil rights for trans people.

[Celerity]

https://prospect.org/2025/12/19/transphobic-mask-is-off-congress-ban-health-care/


Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) sits with other members of Congress during a ceremony at which President Trump signed an executive order banning transgender women from women’s sports, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, February 5, 2025. Credit: Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images

For many years now, conservatives, along with an influential group of centrists and liberals, have presented a certain narrative regarding trans people in this country: They are Concerned. They’re worried, they say, about trans women in bathrooms—what if a male predator leverages trans rights systems to pretend to be a woman and ambushes victims in the bathroom? They’re worried, they say, about people getting transition care too easily—what if gender clinics and endocrinologists start bum-rushing children into transition surgery? Above all, they say, they are outraged about trans women in sports—what if a man pretends to be a woman so he can win first place easily?

This narrative is and always has been a lie. What these people actually have is a seething, obsessive hatred of trans people. They want them either back in the closet or dead. We know that because rather than address any of the alleged “concerns” mentioned above, they are moving straight to a total prohibition of any trans care for children. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) drew up a bill making pediatric transition care of any kind a federal felony to provide, punishable by up to a decade in prison, and it passed Wednesday night. Notably, it would not have passed without three turncoat House Democrats: Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, and Donald Davis of North Carolina.

The bill is expected to fall short of the 60 votes it needs to pass in the Senate, but the Trump administration is doing its usual end run around Congress to achieve the same result. Secretary of Health and Human Services RFK Jr., along with Dr. Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, have announced new upcoming rules stipulating that any hospital that conducts pediatric transition care will lose its Medicaid and Medicare funding. Since virtually every hospital takes such money, it means a de facto total ban at all hospitals across the country. Once that is accomplished, a total ban on trans care for anyone is highly likely to be the next goal.

Should this policy be adopted and pass muster with the courts, the effect will be devastating. Most immediately, trans children—and trans people in general—are at a seriously elevated risk of suicide because of discrimination; transition care is shown to greatly reduce that risk. More generally, hundreds of thousands of trans children will have their civil rights gravely infringed; hundreds of thousands of parents will have their own parental rights abridged. We’ve found those meddling Big Government bureaucrats telling you how to raise your kids: the Republican Party.

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[Walleye]

1. I don't understand why they are more afraid of transgender persons than guns

Cowards

[MustLoveBeagles]

3. Ikr?!!!

[Johonny]

10. They arent, their stupid voters are bigoted

Assholes easily triggered and they just totally fucked them over financially, so they are tossing the trans community under the bus to throw assholes a bone in hipes it helps them in 2026. Most only care about their bribes, tax cuts, and insider trading.

[Walleye]

12. I guess they just found a small unsympathetic vulnerable population that they can pick on and bully

The Republicans seem unsympathetic anyway. It’s something about their machismo

[Johonny]

14. Its a group that polls poorly with moderates

Trans rights are decades behind gay rights in polling. Until that improves, they are willing to fuck away at their rights.

[meadowlander]

13. The NRA gives them $2 million a year.

The "transgender agenda", I'm guessing nada.

Also while I'm here, my rendition of "the mask of transphobia":



They weren't exactly being subtle about it before.

[leftstreet]

2. Another attempt at destroying civil rights

Another group being offered up on the altar of Thin End of The Wedge, in the relentless pursuit of rolling back our civil rights



DURec

[IbogaProject]

4. There are Intersex people

I wish these debates there are people born with mixed genitals. I know a "woman" who is XY but her hormones made her slightly more feminine, fully sexually able as a female. But nowadays she might get humiliated as a youth trying to play sports.

[Igel]

15. Sure.

There are people mixed genitalia.

They're not the topic of the conversation. Motte and bailey apply here. Intersex is the fallback; most (most) easily align along a dichotomy; the remnant are an issue--but not *this* issue. That small percentage are *not* the topic of discussion for 98% + of the discussants.

But motte & bailey arguments, they don't care.

[Nanjeanne]

5. I don't understand anyone's fixation on any other human being's identity. Mind your own fucking business.

[ismnotwasm]

7. Exactly

This obsession with other people’s genitalia is so bizarre

[ismnotwasm]

6. Absolutely disgusting

[Johonny]

8. Can the democrats in the Senate fillibuster this?

They should not allow closure.

[Celerity]

9. yes they can

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. and unfortunately there's enough transphobia across the political spectrum that this has a foothold