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“President” Trump Bans Trans People From Military Service via F*cking Twitter

Heather Hogan —
Jul 26, 2017

Feature image via Shutterstock

Donald Trump decided to switch up his morning Twitter time today, putting the breaks on his relentless 140-character lies that he and his campaign didn’t work with Russia to steal the White House, and moving ahead with a “plan” to ban all transgender people from serving in the U.S. military.

“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the US Military,” he tweeted. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender [sic] in the military would entail.”

By all accounts, Trump’s announcement completely caught the Pentagon off-guard — but while the news seemed to come out of nowhere, reversing Obama’s progress for LGBT people has been once of Mike Pence’s top priorities. According to Foreign Policy magazine, three separate but nearly identical amendments to the 2018 defense spending bill were introduced by Republicans this week. They aim to roll back the Obama-era guideline that covers medical transition for trans service members. And while Pence’s spokesperson said Pence has been focusing on healthcare, multiple sources confirmed to Foreign Policy that “Pence and his staff have been reaching out to Republican members of the House to push for the amendment to be included.”

Pence was no doubt aided by Defense Secretary James Mattis in his quest to destroy progressive protections. Last June, Obama’s secretary of defense, Ash Carter, laid out a 12-month timeline from the Pentagon to ensure that trans troops would be able to serve openly by June 2017. Mattis delayed that timeline almost immediately after being appointed to the job by Trump. Mattis was firmly opposed to overturning Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and he also doesn’t believe women should be allowed to serve in combat zones. “We fear that an uninformed public is permitting political leaders to impose an accretion of social conventions that are diminishing the combat power of our military,” he wrote in 2016.

Mattis told Trump the Pentagon needed more time to study the costs and effects of allowing trans people serving openly in the military, but, as Vox points out, there have already been numerous studies on the subject, including one just last year that found “the cost of medically treating transgender troops would be relatively low, around $2.4 million to $8.4 million annually, which would be a 0.04 to 0.13 percent increase in health care costs.” That’s a fraction of the $84 million the Department of Defense spends on erectile dysfunction every year. It’s not just that study; all available evidence disproves the claim that allowing trans people to serve openly in the military harms combat readiness or isn’t cost effective.

The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen agrees with the research. Just Tuesday he admonished Congress to accept trans service members and treat them with the respect they deserve.

So let’s just call this what it is: Trump is desperate to change the conversation surrounding his presidency. He and his family and his advisors are mired in scandal that starts with Russian collusion and seems to be sprawling out into the history of Trump’s financial empire. His son, his son-in-law, and his former campaign manager are inevitably heading to Congress to testify about their contact with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. His attorney general, it’s now clear, has perjured himself twice before the Senate about his own dealings with the Kremlin. Trump even recently enquired about whether or not he can pardon himself. The only distraction at this point is healthcare, which the Republicans technically won on yesterday by shoving through a decision to debate repealing Obamacare, but no amount of unhinged speeches to Boy Scouts is going to make that decision any more popular.

Trump clearly pulled the trigger on an announcement that was not ready to be made — what’s even going to happen to the thousands of active trans troops who already came out and are serving and receiving healthcare under the Obama-era guidelines? — to appease one of the only groups of people standing by his side (delusional white evangelical Christians) and get a reprieve from the onslaught of reporting that continues to delegitimize his presidency.

The backlash to Trump’s announcement — which, again, he made on fucking Twitter — has been swift and strong. Dozens of Congresspeople, including (weirdly enough) John McCain, have spoken out against it. And many LGBTQ celebrities and activists have weighed in as well.

https://twitter.com/SmartAssJen/status/890204486085603328

https://twitter.com/JoshACLU/status/890198196877750276

For more information about trans people serving openly in the military:

+ The Army Taught Me That I Can Change My Body (And It Will Still Be Mine) by Vivian on Autostraddle

+ Transgender in the military: A Pentagon in transition weighs its policy on The Washington Post

+ Transgender, at war and in love on The New York Times

+ TransMilitary, a documentary

Update: Politico is reporting that Trump made today’s announcement as a convoluted way to secure funding for his border wall. Apparently the House was planning to pass a spending bill that funded some of his campaign promises, among them the wall. But the bill was close to blowing up because there was a stipulation that provided Pentagon funding for gender confirmation surgery for trans tropes. Trump got wind of it and decided to just ban trans troops all together. “Problem” solved, nothing in the way of him and his border wall money.

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