The Republican Party continues its dedication to actively harming the American people with their latest piece of monstrous legislation that they call HR1 or the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a title so loaded with irony it’s borderline Orwellian. It’s a budget reconciliation bill that the Right is touting as being a massive savings bill for the American people, but actually guts many key services including Medicaid. One of its most frightening provisions is one that bans the use of Medicaid for any gender-affirming care for transgender people of any age.
Journalist Erin Reed was one of the first to report on the fact that, in a late night session on Wednesday, the bill, which was originally going to restrict the use of Medicaid for gender-affirming care for minors, removed the words “for minors” in a manager’s amendment. According to them.us, the manager’s amendment was introduced by Texas Rep. Jodey Arrington who can be reached at his Washington office at 888-217-0281 in case you feel the need to call him and tell him to fuck off.
The bill would have far-reaching consequences and would ban not just surgery but puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and possibly even bloodwork to check hormone levels, making basic trans healthcare out of reach for many transgender Americans. Note that the bill specifically bans these things for trans people but not for cisgender people, which is obviously discriminatory.
The bill very narrowly passed the House with a vote of 215-214. The vote was very nearly down party lines with all House Democrats voting against the bill and two Republicans crossing party lines to vote against it. Notably, every single one of the Colorado Republicans in the House voted for the bill, including Ms. Beetlejuice Jerk-Off herself, Lauren Boebert. The bill now moves on to the Senate, which currently has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, and two independents. The only chance to defeat this bill is if at least four Republicans cross party lines to vote against it, and that’s assuming that no Democrats cross party lines themselves.
“While this bill is being presented by the far right as a money-saving solution for our country as a whole, do not be fooled,” says OneColorado in a press release. “Seventy percent of the bill’s tax benefits go to the top 5% while increasing costs for the bottom 40% of Americans. Let’s be clear, this bill does nothing but harm and is an attack on all of us.”
As a transgender person on Medicaid who doesn’t really have the option to get on private insurance, this is a horrifying and infuriating bill. While the Republican Party has tried to frame their attacks on transgender Americans as “protecting children,” this is the point where they have officially dropped that pretense and are coming after the bodily autonomy of fully-grown adults. This is outright bigotry being put into law.
Colorado has no Republican Senators, so hopefully Senators Hickenlooper and Bennett do the right thing and vote against this monstrous bill. If you feel the need to contact anyone else in the Senate, here’s a list of every Senator’s phone number. Remember that each number is preceded by 202-22X-XXXX. Feel free to use as much profanity as you deem fit.
