The House on Thursday defeated a measure which would have mandated that the Army not pay for gender transition surgery. The measure, which sought to rollback a regulation which took effect on Oct. 1, 2016, was voted down 214-209 by the House.

In a floor rant Friday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) railed against the vote by comparing the procedure to the Ottoman Empire’s practice of castrating slaves.

“What they did in order to keep them from reproducing was that they did reassignment surgery on those slaves they had captured, that they had put into their janissary troops,” King said. “And that reassignment surgery was they took them from being a virile, reproductive male into being a eunuch.”

Calling that practice a “civilization killer,” King suggested transgender individuals would enlist in the Army just to have gender reassignment surgery.

“This policy, clearly enacted, clearly advertised, is a neon sign for people that want to have sexual reassignment surgery,” King said. “They will line up at the recruiter’s office, and they’ll go into the office…and the military will be saying ‘We had to turn this person away because they were too heavy. And this one had flat feet. And this one had a bad eye. And this one had a congenital defect of one kind or another.’ But if they don’t have those, and they want sexual reassignment surgery, we’ll cut ’em up and remake ’em into something different to the tune of $3.5 or nine billion dollars over a 10 year period of time, and put ’em off in the recovery room for two years before we can put them to work and use ’em.”

King, who has a long history of offensive comments, added this:

“Can you imagine someone…taking up a bed in Walter Reed hospital, maybe a roommate with someone who was hit by an IED. Someone who lost a couple of legs, amputated, in the dangerous, dangerous service of the freedoms of our country. Can you imagine those two beds side by side? One of ’em missing a couple of legs, or an arm, or an arm and a leg, or two arms. And the other one saying, ‘Well, I just came in for sexual reassignment surgery.’ I won’t say the next things in my mind.”

Watch above, via CSPAN.

[featured image via screengrab]

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