Biden signs defense bill despite objections to ban on transgender health care for military children

President Joe Biden on Monday he signed a defense bill that allows significant pay increases for junior soldiers, aims to counter China’s growing power and boosts total military spending to $895 billion despite his objections to language stripping coverage of transgender medical treatment for children in military families.

Biden said his administration strongly opposes the provision because it targets a group on the basis gender identity and “interfere with the roles of parents to determine the best care for their children.” He said it also undermines the all-volunteer military’s ability to recruit and retain talent.

President Joe Biden signed the defense bill despite objections to the bill. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

“No soldier should have to decide between their family’s access to health care and their call to serve our nation,” the president said in a statement.

Senate forwarded the bill to Biden after he passed it by an 85-14 vote last week. In the House of Representatives, most Democrats voted against the bill after House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted on adding a provision banning transgender medical care for children. The law was easily adopted with 281 to 140 votes.

Biden also objected to other wording in the bill that prohibits the use of money intended to transfer prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to some foreign countries and the United States. He called on Congress to lift those restrictions.

President Joe Biden signed a bill increasing military spending to $895 billion. (Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)

The annual defense appropriations bill, which directs Pentagon policy, gives a 14.5% salary increase for junior soldiers and a 4.5% increase for others.

The law also directs resources toward a more confrontational approach to China, including establishing a fund that could be used to send military resources to Taiwan in a similar way to how the U.S. has supported Ukraine. It also invests in new military technologies, including artificial intelligence, and supports US ammunition production.

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The US has also moved towards prohibition in recent years army from buying Chinese products, and the defense bill expanded that by banning Chinese goods from garlic in military commissaries to drone technology.

The law still needs to be backed up by a spending package.