On Thursday, out lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin helped lead a group of 45 Senate Democrats in urging Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) and Vice Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) to reject 55 anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ provisions in 12 must-pass funding bills to avoid a government shutdown.

“House Republicans have used the [2025 fiscal year] appropriations process to push extremist and unpopular anti- LGBTQ+ measures, which threaten the lives and fundamental dignity of LGBTQ+ communities,” Baldwin and the other senators wrote in an open letter.

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The provisions would allow taxpayer-funded organizations to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. Several of the bills’ other provisions would prevent the administration from enforcing executive orders and laws to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination.

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“Half of the House’s appropriations bills also contain dangerous riders that severely restrict access to gender-affirming care, which would deprive transgender people of critical, medically necessary, evidence-based, and often life-saving healthcare,” the letter continues. “Among those who would be impacted by these riders are the more than 134,000 transgender veterans who rely on the Veterans’ Affairs Administration for their healthcare.”

One of the aforementioned provisions would issue a ban on Medicare and Medicaid funds for healthcare providers who provide gender-affirming medical care. Many hospitals and medical providers could stop offering the care rather than risk losing access to federal funds.

Other provisions would repeal President Joe Biden’s executive orders protecting access to abortion care, interfere with postgraduate medical training in abortion care, and restrict access to abortion and fertility care for military members, veterans, and their families.

“If adopted, these provisions would dramatically undermine people’s ability to make decisions about their bodies, lives, and futures,” the letter stated, adding, “Partisan, discriminatory, and harmful policy riders have no place in must-pass legislation such as appropriations bills. In the recent past, the Senate has had success passing bipartisan bills in committee because these bills did not contain new poison pill riders.”

The letter also noted that, in 2024 alone, more than 574 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced across 42 state legislatures.

The senators’ letter is endorsed by several LGBTQ+ and allied organizations including the Human Rights Campaign, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Whitman-Walker Institute, the National Women’s Law Center, Reproductive Freedom for All, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Advocates for Trans Equality among other groups.

Realistically, Congress will not be able to agree upon final versions of these bills in time to get them signed into law before the federal legislature adjourns on December 20. As such, lawmakers will likely need to pass a continuing resolution (CR) to avoid a government shutdown by maintaining current levels of government spending until Congress can pass new funding bills. The real question is how long the CR will last.

Republicans will hold a 53-47 seat majority in the Senate next term, but — assuming that they don’t eliminate the filibuster rule — they’ll need Democratic support to overcome the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster. As such, Democrats may be able to successfully prevent the anti-LGBTQ+ and abortion amendments from becoming law, even after President-elect Donald Trump is sworn back into office.

Concurrently, House Republicans have introduced a provision in the $895.2 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that bans the military’s health insurance plan, TRICARE, from covering any medical treatment for “gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization” for children under 18.

It’s unclear if the current legislation would ban puberty blockers (which don’t affect fertility), hormone replacement therapies (which can), or mastectomies (which are rarely ever performed on minors).

While 81 Democrats voted in favor of the NDAA, it still needs a Senate vote and the signature of President Joe Biden to become law. The Democratic Senate could potentially remove the provision before passing its own version of the NDAA, and Biden has previously pledged to veto any legislation that harms the LGBTQ+ community.

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