National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027

Floor Speech

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Ms. MACE. Mr. Chair, let me be clear. There are two biological sexes: male and female. They are assigned at conception and cannot be changed. Biology doesn't care how many hormones someone pumps into their bodies or how they mutilate their bodies. Biological reality cannot be changed by medical intervention.

In the Fiscal Year 2025 NDAA, Congress prohibited TRICARE from covering medical interventions to treat gender dysphoria, which would result in the sterilization of children. This was an important step, but there is more to be done.

This language failed to prohibit the Department of War from chemically and surgically mutilating our servicemembers and their children and performing a number of sick procedures on our kids.

This amendment would prohibit the Department of War from covering or furnishing any chemical or surgical mutilation procedures through TRICARE--not one dime for cross-sex hormones, not one dime for taxpayer-funded puberty blockers, not one dime for taxpayer-funded surgeries, all in the name of gender-affirming care and this crazy gender woke ideology.

The Federal Government and, particularly, the Department of War should not be in the business of funding the chemical and surgical mutilation of our citizens. This is not healthcare. It is the butchering of healthy bodies, and American taxpayers should never pay for it.

Not only do these disgusting trans chemical, trans surgical interventions often cause permanent infertility, sterility, and sexual dysfunction, but they can actually increase depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. They can cause cancer among those on whom these medical procedures are performed.

This amendment restores common sense to military healthcare. It aligns the Department of War with the growing international medical consensus that these interventions, particularly for children, are extremely harmful.

This amendment ensures that Defense health dollars are spent on advancing the health of our servicemembers and their families, not undermining it, and certainly not on advancing an ideology based on delusion. We pay for our warfighters to mutilate the enemy, not to mutilate themselves.

Mr. Chair, I urge all Members to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. MACE. Mr. Chair, testosterone treatment for men serving in our military isn't gender-affirming care. We want the most masculine, the most muscular, the toughest warfighters in the world because they are in the trenches. They are doing combat. They are the ones who are putting their lives on the line.

The idea that chopping someone's penis off is risking military readiness is ludicrous. We are talking about mentally ill men that think having a menstrual cycle means bleeding out of your rectum. That is how crazy and insane this conversation is.

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Ms. MACE. If you think your kid is trans and you are the parent, your kid needs to be taken out of your household. It is insane to think--you are hearing these stories this week in the news how somebody's 2-year- old knew that, when they were born a girl, they are actually a boy and all this craziness.

Children have creative imaginations. They imagine that they might be a monkey. That doesn't mean you feed them bananas and leave them in a jungle because they think they are Curious George. It is insane.

This is a mental health crisis. Anyone who is mentally ill should not be serving in our military, and they absolutely should not be serving in combat.

Every dollar spent by the Department of War on chemical and surgical sex change procedures is a dollar not spent on preparing the readiness of America's warfighter.

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Ms. MACE. Mr. Chair, you just heard it from California: cis man. I don't even know what a cis man is. That sounds ridiculous.

Talking about pretend doctors, I think we had a pretend doctor testify on the Hill this week. The president of a prestigious university could not testify that only women can give birth to babies. Someone who is supposed to be training medical physicians and medical doctors here in the United States couldn't say under oath, in Congress, that only women can give birth to babies. I don't think you can trust medical doctors that say being tranny is a thing.

Treating somebody's low T or thyroid, if they are a man, that seems like a natural, biological thing, but not for a woman. If you give a woman a ton of testosterone, it erodes the lining of her bladder. She eventually becomes incontinent. The other hormones are going to eventually give her breast cancer.

It is just a crazy ideology. We need to follow actual science, follow biology, and not these doctors and universities that are training medical doctors, that are making millions and millions of dollars by keeping people on prescriptions, on medicines that drive them crazy, to shoot up schools, churches, and synagogues. All these tranny shootings, all these mass shootings, it is actually insane. They should not be serving in the military.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. MACE. Mr. Chair, women and girls have fought for so long to have equal opportunities in education and athletics. As the first female graduate of the Citadel's Corps of Cadets, no one understands this more than I do.

Unfortunately, these rights are now under attack. Over 900 medals have been stolen from women and girls by biological males. This flies in the face of common sense and our most basic notions of fairness and women's rights.

Even if some of my colleagues are too afraid to say it, every person in this room knows that men and women are biologically distinct. This truth has been obvious to every civilization in the history of mankind. Yet, mediocre male athletes are forcing their way into little girls' locker rooms and onto their courts and fields. Women and girls are being robbed of athletic opportunities. Make no mistake, this is misogyny masquerading as progress.

This amendment would prohibit biological males from participating in schools administered by the Department of Defense Education Activity.

DoDEA schools serve the children of our warfighters, and they should not have to worry about their little girls having their private spaces invaded, having their accomplishments and opportunities stolen from them, and being injured competing against men.

We have seen countless women's volleyball teams across the country forfeit instead of having to face biological men and risk the same physical injuries experienced by Payton McNabb.

In Massachusetts in 2023, a female field hockey player had her teeth knocked out by a biological male during a game.

In 2024, a high school women's basketball team was forced to forfeit after a 6-foot bearded male athlete injured three of their players, leaving girls in pain and injury on the court.

These are the predictable consequences of a policy which dresses up biological ignorance as compassion.

I urge all Members to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. MACE. Mr. Chair, trans girls aren't real girls. Trans women aren't real women. Cis women, nobody knows what that is. It is not actually a thing.

There are significant physical, biological differences between men and women. Biological men generally have greater muscle mass, bone density, cardiovascular capacity, physical strength than women, and the risk of physical injury is real.

The irony and the hypocrisy to say that banning biological men from girls' locker rooms and sports makes them less safe is ludicrous. It is actually the trannies that are going into prisons or going into schools, going into locker rooms, going into bathrooms.

The LGBTQ-plus-plus-plus whatever it is, queer, these are the people that are putting women at risk. They are raping them in our prisons. They are assaulting them at schools, in the locker rooms, in the bathrooms. This is the kind of thing that we don't want our very masculine, high-T warfighter having to worry about his little girl when he is out there killing the real bad guys. We want to keep them safe.

As a survivor, I know what the vulnerabilities are for women in private spaces and how vulnerable we are at all ages. This bill would protect the little girls of our warfighters across the country.

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Ms. MACE. Mr. Chair, I would encourage my colleagues on the left side of the aisle to read Martina Navratilova's X account today, talking about how confirming she was a woman was not invasive. It was a simple cheek swab. This is the fear politics of the left, and that says a lot about how far they have gone.

To say that trans kids just want to be on a team with our little girls, if there is a tranny on a team with our daughters, they need to be kicked right off. If they are in a locker room with our girls, they need to be kicked right out.

We have seen some really crazy stories of grown men with beards shaving at the sink with little girls in towels in the corner of the locker room scared to death and vulnerable to sexual predators. We all know the tranny thing really is about sexual gratification. Sexual attraction to being dressed as a woman has nothing to do with them thinking that they are a woman.

In fact, they are mocking being a woman. They are mocking our femininity, and they are mocking the rights that we fought for for hundreds and hundreds of years. It has not been long since women actually got the right to vote. There are still ceilings to be broken in this country. It is not going to be done by some mentally ill man in a skirt.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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