All But 5 House Republicans Just Voted to Support President Trump’s Ban on Transgender Troops

One GOP Congresswoman has been lying about transgender troops, using demonstrably false numbers to exponentially inflate their medical costs.

The U.S. House of Representatives just held a vote on a resolution denouncing President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender service members in the U.S. Armed Forces. Despite polls that find seven out of 10 voters support open service by transgender troops, only five Republicans crossed the aisle to vote in favor of the resolution denouncing the ban.

The non-binding resolution, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Kennedy III (D-MA) passed with a final vote of 238-185. Democrats were united in unanimous support of the resolution.

“Today, this House has a chance to not repeat the mistakes of our past, to move one step closer to that sacred promise, by telling brave trans men and women in uniform that they cannot be banned from military service because of who they are,” Kennedy said, as The Washington Blade reports.

Two Republicans stood on the House floor to denounce the resolution and to support the President.

“Among them was Rep. Vicky Hartlzer (R-Mo.), who has a notoriously anti-LGBT record and two years ago introduced an amendment to the House floor seeking to ban the U.S. military from paying for transition-related care, including gender reassignment surgery,” The Blade notes.

Indeed, Congresswoman Hartzler (photo above, from her speech today) has been waging her own war against transgender troops, and lying to provide “reasons” to ban them.

Citing Defense Dept. data the AP reported last month that “the military has spent about $8 million on transgender care since 2016 out of its $50 billion overall health care budget.”

But Rep. Hartzler has been telling a far different tale.

According to the anti-LGBTQ Congresswoman, the medical costs of keeping transgender troops in the U.S. Armed Forces would be $1.35 billion over 10 years, or $135 million annually. That’s exponentially greater than about $4 million per year.

Hartzler has also compared transgender service members to ISIS and called them a “domestic threat.”

All of those are lies.