This week, outgoing House Representative Nancy Mace introduced a bill which would bar trans people from any federal government position requiring a mental health evaluation.
This would include all positions requiring security clearances, and any position that checks the mental health history of job applicants.
The bill is written to bar anyone diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” from holding these government positions. Crucially, “gender dysphoria” is a diagnosis exclusive to trans people, meaning that by barring people diagnosed with this, they are exclusively barring trans people.
Representative Mace is not being subtle about this fact. The bill is titled the “Gender Delusion Disqualification Act”. Republicans regularly use the term “Gender Delusion” as a slur for transness.
It should be noted that there is effectively no way this bill becomes a law through the standard method. It would need to get 60 votes in the Senate, meaning that it would need the support of several Democratic Senators. Seeing as this term has seen far less severe anti-trans bills pass the House only to die in the Senate, it is safe to say that the same would happen here.
However, Rep. Mace has successfully pushed similar bills into law by attaching them as riders to must-pass legislation. In doing so, she can force legislators to vote for her bill by threatening to shut down government functions if she does not get her way.
This is how she was able to get a ban on trans youth coverage through military health insurance into the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2025. That omnibus, signed into law by then-president Joe Biden, was the first federal anti-queer legislation enacted by the federal government in the 21st century.
Since the NDAA is what funds the Pentagon, most legislators feel that it must pass no matter what.
The House of Representatives is currently in the preliminary stages of negotiating the language of the 2027 NDAA. This is when many riders are attached to it, as a way to pass legislation that might not get a floor vote otherwise.
Rep. Mace has already proposed two anti-trans amendments to the 2027 NDAA. These are a ban on TRICare (military health insurance) covering trans healthcare, and a ban on trans women and girls playing on women’s sports at schools run by the Department of Defense. As of writing, both are in the 2027 NDAA.
This latest anti-trans bill runs the risk of being added as a rider to the 2027 NDAA. Mace has already accomplished this with two amendments in July, and this could end up as a third.
If enacted, any trans person whose job requires a security clearance would be fired. This is true whether they work at the federal government, or at a private firm contracting with the federal government.
Federal employees whose work requires a mental health evaluation would be fired as well.
Jobs that would be affected by this include but are not limited to: military contractors, intelligence officials, private intelligence contractors, federal law enforcement, etc..
Many of these positions are being filled by trans people who have recently been fired from the military and who are still looking for roles in public service. In many cases, these trans people are working in roles which put them in close contact with active duty military personnel and intelligence officials.
The presence of trans people in such roles undermines the administration’s stated goal of removing trans people from public life.
By targeting trans people who interact with military and intelligence, the Trump Administration is “adding another tool to their kit that will let them go after more people in previously harder to reach places, in particular civilian contractors that require security clearances or work for the government indirectly”, according to Trans Liberty Executive Director Samantha Boucher.
Notably, this ban would not include trans people who are employed by state and local governments.
This ban is notable in that, unlike other bans for mental health, the proposed ban on those with “gender dysphoria” has no limiting clauses. That means that past treatment for this so-called condition would not be considered when determining whether to fire a trans person under this bill.
By contrast, other mental health conditions might lead to a person’s security clearance being revoked, but the person in question would be able to return to work once the issue is taken care of. For example, if someone with a security clearance was found to be an alcoholic, they would lose their clearance, but they have to option to go to rehab at the taxpayer’s expense, and get their clearance back afterwards.
In the case of a diagnosis of “gender dysphoria”, the bill lists nothing on what curing it might look like in practice. In other words, trans people are being treated as more unworthy and incapable of such positions than people with real and debilitating conditions.
This proposed bill is a ban on trans people in many federal government positions.
A bill like this would normally get called a ban in all but name; but since it is literally called the “Gender Delusion Disqualification Act”, it is, in essence, a ban in name as well.
