‘If They Don’t Have Those and Want Sexual Reassignment Surgery, We’ll Cut Them Up and Remake Them Into Something Different’ King Says
U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) was so angered a bill banning the use of Defense Dept. funds for transgender transition medical services failed late Thursday he stood on the House floor Friday morning and told offensive and disgusting lie after lie after lie.
King is a white nationalist who is perhaps best known for claiming that for every undocumented immigrant in America who’s a “valedictorian,” there are 100 with “calves the size of cantaloupes“ running drugs across the Mexican border.
The eight-term congressman didn’t hold back his rage Friday, nor could he hold back his obvious hatred of transgender people, even those risking their lives to serve their country in the armed forces.
(It’s important to note that, as NCRM reported Friday, King is the chair of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice and is co-sponsoring a bill that would ban transgender people from being protected under existing federal civil rights laws.)
Literally almost nothing King said in relation to transgender people is true. We’ll take his word on the historical details of his speech.
King argued that by allowing the military to pay for medically necessary transition care for transgender soldiers, the U.S. is proving it is willing to let the nation die. He also compared transgender soldiers to castrated slaves, eunuchs from the 16th and 17th century Ottoman Empire, who were, he said, not good at fighting because they no longer produced testosterone.
“What they did in order to keep them from reproducing was that they did reassignment surgery on those slaves that they captured that they had put into their Janissaries troops,” Rep. King said, as Breitbart reports. That’s false. It was not “reassignment surgery,” it was castration, period.
“And that reassignment surgery was they took them from being a virile reproductive male to being eunuchs. They were suitable to work in the harem, but they found out when to put them out in the field to do battle against the enemy, that they didn’t have the testosterone to take on the fight. And so over a period of time, a generation or two, they finally realized, I guess we are going to have to stop turning these men into eunuchs if we are going to have them as a fighting machine.”
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It’s vile and offensive to compare a transgender soldier to a eunuch. These are U.S. military service members. Secretary of Defense James Mattis should send Rep. King a letter demanding an apology to every transgender service member.
King continues his offensive attack.
“That’s the Janissaries. And the old history through that is replete with narrative after narrative of them taking out the knife and actually cutting these atomically complete men flush. Some would die, and some would live, but none of them had the will to fight. So they decided they were going to keep anatomically complete men. Men that were producing testosterone in their crack Janissaries troops where they fought well.”
And then, more lies. King actually claims there will be transgender people “lining up at the recruitment center who have planned that they want to do sexual reassignment surgery” in the military, just so they can get “free” transition care.
It will surprise Rep. King to learn that thanks to ObamaCare and the Obama-era Dept. of Health and Human Services, nearly all insurance plans must cover transition care. So, there’s no need to enlist to obtain medical care.
The ACLU’s Joshua Block adds:
“That’s a lesson from the Ottoman military from two, three, four hundred years ago,” King continues on his long, wasteful trip into history, “and today we are thinking that we are going to make the military better while people lining up at the recruitment center who have planned that they want to do sexual reassignment surgery, know that it is expensive and just believe if I can get into the Navy, Army, Air Force and Marines, maybe become a Navy Seal and submit to sexual reassignment surgery and go from a man to a woman.”
Of course, King isn’t finished yet. He calls the DoD funding transition care “a neon sign for people who want to have sexual reassignment surgery.”
“It doesn’t look women will be going into men after they go through seal training. I don’t think that’s going to happen. But there is no way this enhances the capabilities of our military. There is no way this enhances the morale of our military. And you will never see a platoon that is made up of all the folks that are likely to line up to sign into our military. This policy clearly, if enacted and advertised, is a neon sign for people who want to have sexual reassignment surgery. They will line up at the recruitment office. They’ll be going into the military. And the military will say we had to turn away this one because he was too heavy or had flat feet or a bad eye or congenital defect of one kind or another.”
And then King lies about the cost. King says $3.9 billion over ten years. The Rand Corporation puts the figure at “$2.4 million and $8.4 million annually.” King is lying exponentially.
“But if they don’t have those and want sexual reassignment surgery, we’ll cut them up and remake them into something different, to the tune of 3.9 billion dollars over a ten-year period. And put them off in the recovery room for two years before we can put them to work and use them. And by the way, they are likely to be discharged to go back into society if their only purpose was to get the free surgery.”
As Mediaite also reports, King also offensively said:
“Can you imagine someone…taking up a bed in Walter Reed hospital, maybe a roommate with someone who was hit by an IED. Someone who lost a couple of legs, amputated, in the dangerous, dangerous service of the freedoms of our country. Can you imagine those two beds side by side? One of ’em missing a couple of legs, or an arm, or an arm and a leg, or two arms. And the other one saying, ‘Well, I just came in for sexual reassignment surgery.’ I won’t say the next things in my mind.”
Again, practically nothing Rep. King said was true. He owes the U.S. military and every transgender person who has ever served an apology. And he owes the American people an apology for lying on the floor of the House of Representatives.
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