Republican Worried Drag Queens Will Launch Missiles

Republican Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana expressed concern about drag performers controlling missiles at an Air Force base in his state.

Rosendale was speaking against funding gender reassignment surgeries for military personnel during a U.S. House session on Thursday. A rule was passed during the session for the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which would allow lawmakers to start looking into 80 amendments to the military spending bill. Those amendments are related to hot-button issues such as abortion and diversity policies in the Pentagon and aid to Ukraine, according to ABC News.

Rosendale's office reported on Wednesday that the Congressman filed and testified in support of some amendments, including one that bans TRICARE, a health care program for active service members, from covering sex reassignment surgeries and hormone treatments for transgender individuals.

"We have drag shows taking place at Malmstrom Air Force Base. There are 150 ICBM missiles that are being controlled by that Air Force Base and by these individuals. I do not want someone who doesn't know if they are a man or a woman with their hand on a missile button," Rosendale said on Thursday.

The Republican expressed his opposition towards "anything that doesn't contribute to making our fighting force the most effective" and said that he will not ask Montana residents or the United States to allocate funding towards transgender care.

"Anything that doesn't make our military the most effective fighting force in the world is a distraction. That's why I introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to prevent taxpayers from having to fund gender reassignment surgeries for military personnel," he tweeted on Thursday.

His remarks come at a time when trans rights are being heavily targeted on different occasions that ranged from boycotting Bud Light for using trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote its products to passing anti-trans laws and introducing 490 anti-LGBTQ+ proposals in state legislatures across the U.S.

Newsweek reached out by email to the National Center for Transgender Equality for comment, but meanwhile, he was met online with differing opinions than his own.

"Your press release suggests this would include the family members of service members who are covered under Tricare.

"You know what doesn't make our military effective? Service members worrying about their families getting the medical care they need when they need it," tweeted Garrett Lenderman.

"you have voted AGAINST help for the military," tweeted @NoDynynTruth. "Montana doesn't have a representative. Montana has a PROPAGANDIST".

To attract new recruits, the Department of Defense (DOD) launched initiatives that involved carrying out drag performances. For example, the U.S. Navy launched a pilot program that ran for a few months in which it used a drag queen as a "digital ambassador" to reach out to young people who might be interested in joining the Navy. The move outraged Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

The U.S. Navy said in March that it was facing a "challenging recruiting environment" and that it didn't meet its recruitment targets in fiscal year 2022 for reserve personnel and active duty officers, according to the Navy Times.

Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, who goes by the drag name Harpy Daniels and identifies as non-binary, announced on Instagram last November that they had been invited to become a "digital ambassador" for the Navy as per the program, and has performed in drag for sailors.

"I will NOT vote to fund ANY Trans programs of ANY kind especially of medical nature in our NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act]. ZERO. Our military has only one purpose, the defense of our country. Our military needs to train men for war, not turn men into fake women," Greene tweeted on at the time. The NDAA includes a series of federal laws that specify the DOD's annual budget.