Watch Rep. Sarah McBride's Powerful Statement on Republicans' Anti-Trans Obsession

The first openly trans member of Congress made a rare, personal appeal as the GOP wages an all-out assault on trans youth.

It’s been a busy couple of days for Republicans who want to make life harder for trans kids.

On Wednesday evening, the House passed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” by a vote of 216-211. The bill, which the ACLU has called “the most extreme anti-trans legislation ever considered by Congress,” would make it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison for doctors to provide gender-affirming care to minors. It would also expose parents who help their kids access care to criminal liability. The bill carves out an exception for surgeries on intersex infants, many of which are nonconsensual and medically unnecessary, because of course it does.

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Three Democrats voted with Republicans to pass the bill: Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, and Don Davis of North Carolina. Worth noting: Trump recently pardoned Cuellar after the congressman was indicted on charges of bribery, money laundering, and conspiracy. The bill would have failed without those three Democratic votes.

Today, the House is expected to vote on Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s bill to ban Medicaid from covering gender-affirming care for trans youth.

And also today, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a package of measures that would effectively ban gender-affirming care for minors nationwide through administrative action. The rules would bar hospitals from providing this care as a condition of participating in Medicare and Medicaid. Because virtually every hospital in the country relies on Medicare funding, this would force hospitals to shut down their gender care programs entirely, cutting off access even for patients with private insurance. Supporters and opponents of trans rights agree that these rules could make access to pediatric gender-affirming care “extremely difficult, if not impossible” across the entire country.

All of this is happening, by the way, while ACA tax credits are set to expire, which will cause health care premiums to skyrocket for millions of Americans. Republicans have scheduled zero votes to address that.

What the evidence actually says

When Republicans talk about “protecting children” from gender-affirming care, they’re largely talking about teenagers. Genital surgeries on minors are exceptionally rare, and the care that trans adolescents actually receive consists mostly of puberty blockers and, for older teens, hormone therapy. This care is supported by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association.

Here’s what opponents of this care don’t want you to think too hard about: puberty is not a neutral waiting period. It permanently changes your body. For a trans girl forced to go through testosterone-driven puberty, that means developing a deeper voice, broader shoulders, more pronounced brow and jaw, and facial hair. For a trans boy forced through estrogen-driven puberty, it means breast development, wider hips, and a shorter stature. These changes are, for the most part, irreversible. Trans adults who transition later in life often spend years and thousands of dollars trying to undo what their natural puberty did to their bodies, with limited success.

Puberty blockers exist precisely to press pause, to give kids and their families time to figure things out before permanent changes set in. They’ve been used for decades to treat precocious puberty in cisgender children without controversy. But when a trans kid takes the exact same medication for a slightly different reason, suddenly it’s “chemical castration” and politicians want to throw doctors in prison.

The cruelty is the point, but so is the incoherence.

These are the same Republicans who have spent years screaming about “parents’ rights.” Parents should decide what books their kids read. Parents should decide what their kids learn in school. Parents should have the final say over their children’s lives, not the government. But when a parent, in consultation with their child and their child’s doctors, decides that their trans teenager should have access to medical care endorsed by every major medical association in the country? Suddenly that parent should go to jail.

It turns out “parents’ rights” only applies when parents make the choices Republicans approve of. The rest of us, apparently, need the government to step in and save our kids from us.

I’ve been critical of McBride. This was different.

I’ve written critically about Rep. Sarah McBride before. Back in June, after her interview with Ezra Klein, I argued that her “public opinion is everything” approach to trans rights was “political malpractice dressed up as pragmatism.” I compared it unfavorably to LBJ’s leadership on the Civil Rights Act, pointing out that great social movements don’t succeed by polling their way to the lowest common denominator.

Politicians Are Supposed to Lead, Not Just Follow Polls

I stand by that critique. And there’s a grim irony in the fact that the “big tent” approach to Democratic politics just allowed Greene’s bill to pass. Three Democrats crossing over was the margin.

But I also believe in giving credit where it’s due. And it’s certainly due here.

McBride rarely centers her identity as a trans woman. If anything, it’s Republicans who can’t stop talking about it. She’s spoken publicly about her strategic decision to focus on kitchen-table issues rather than making herself a symbol. She’s said she refuses to be “martyred” or turned into a “caricature.”

So when McBride steps to the microphone and talks about her own experience, about 21 years of pain before coming out, about the “unwavering homesickness” that only went away when she got care, it means something. It’s a deliberate choice. And on Wednesday, standing on the steps of the Capitol with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Julie Johnson, she made that choice.

I think her remarks are worth watching in full:

Full transcript of McBride’s remarks

We are two legislative days away from the Affordable Care Act tax credits expiring, when millions of people will see their health care premiums skyrocket. And GOP leadership, with that deadline fast approaching, has decided to schedule two votes on anti-trans bills and precisely zero votes on extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits.

They would rather have us focus in and debate a misunderstood and vulnerable 1% of the population instead of focusing in on the fact that they are raiding everyone’s health care in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest 1%.

All Republican politicians care about is making the rich richer and attacking trans people. They are obsessed with trans people. I actually think they think more about trans people than trans people think about trans people. They are consumed with this, and they are extreme on it.

They are bringing forward a bill that would put parents and providers at risk of being jailed—literally jailed—for affirming their transgender child and following medical best practices. It is already hard enough to raise a family today. It is already hard enough to be a kid today. And families with transgender young people are navigating complicated and complex situations, making deeply personal health care decisions. And regardless of what decision you might make as a parent, government should never insert itself into the personal health care decisions of patients, parents, and providers. That is a basic principle and a basic right that should be afforded to all Americans, including transgender people and their families.

Look, millions of people across this country are entering into this conversation with understandable questions, with goodwill, good intentions, and in good faith. But Republican politicians are not. They are trying to use transgender people as political pawns in this moment. They are trying to politicize a misunderstood community and misunderstood care. No one’s health care should be politicized.

Every area of care should have strong safeguards, should have strong standards of care. But those should be drafted by health care professionals in medical associations informed by data, research, and science—not politicians in Washington whose medical knowledge includes thinking that vaccines are the equivalent of the Holocaust.

I get it’s hard to understand what it feels like to be trans. I get that it is hard to understand what it feels like to be me. I get that it’s hard to understand this care and understand the need for it.

But one of the things that gets so lost in this conversation is that the transgender adults of today were kids once. I was a kid once. I didn’t have the courage to come out until I was 21. But it’s a fact I have known about myself for my entire life. I didn’t have the courage to come out until I was 21, and that means 21 years of pain, 21 years of unwavering homesickness that only went away when I was able to get the care that I needed. And my biggest regret in life is that I never had a childhood without that pain.

I marvel at the courage of transgender young people today who are sharing themselves with their families and this world despite the toxicity and the hate that too often emanates from the building behind me and from politicians within it.

All any of us want is to live a life of purpose and happiness and wholeness. None of us know how long we have. None of us know how much time we have on this planet. It is already hard enough to raise a family. It is already hard enough to be a kid. And government should not make it harder.