IT TAKES BRAVERY TO BE A TRANSGENDER PERSON

Trump should want that characteristic in his nation’s military, Marni Panas writes

Recently, the president of the United States announced via his Twitter account that transgender people will no longer be allowed to serve in their military.

He called us a burden, a distraction. Sadly, they are words that many of us transgender people have gotten used to hearing, often from our own families.

I could talk about how hurtful that is to us as individuals and an entire community. I could say how his derogatory words against transgender people and other minorities are extremely dangerous in how they provide many with a moral licence to turn their hateful thoughts into words and actions.

I could point out that transgender soldiers have been fighting for freedom since the Civil War. I could suggest he go to a military cemetery, look at the headstones of the soldiers who died protecting their country and point out which of them are heroes and the others who are transgender.

I could rebuke his claim that transgender people in the military cost the government “billions of dollars.” I could point to the 2016 Rand Corporation study that the estimated true cost of supporting the health care needs of the approximately 1,000 to 6,000 transgender personnel in the United States military is between $2.4 million and $8.4 million.

Even at the high end, that’s 0.134 per cent of the reported $6.27 billion spent on all of the health care needs of active military personnel in 2014. By the way, according to a story in the Washington Post, the Pentagon spends $41.6 million on Viagra. That’s five times more spent on erectile dysfunction than what would be spent on all of the health care needs of transgender people in the military.

I could talk about all of these things and I’d be correct. But what I really want to talk about is bravery. And how brave one needs to be to live in a society that would often rather they not exist at all: the bravery it takes for a transgender person to tell their parents; the bravery a transgender person shows when they walk out of a public washroom wondering if this is the time they get beat up by someone who says they don’t belong there; the bravery transgender people show when they return to work for the first time as their true self (if they are lucky to have a job at all); the bravery a transgender girl shows when she just tries to pee in a school washroom with all the other girls in her class; and the bravery of the parent who stands by that child every step of the way.

I want to talk about the bravery of the female inmate in a men’s prison and the trans woman daddy who is fighting desperately against the myth that she is mentally ill just so she can see her children again. I want to talk about the bravery of a trans person looking for love in a world that has taught them that they are unlovable. I want to talk about the transgender person who only feels safe to be themselves behind closed doors where no one else will know.

I want to talk about the fact that most transgender people show more bravery each time they leave their homes than a reality-TV-show-host-turned-president would ever be required to show in a lifetime.

You know something else about transgender people? We are loyal, fiercely so. If we are made to feel welcome, safe, respected and valued, there is little we wouldn’t do for our colleagues, friends, communities and families.

Yes, let’s talk about bravery. Bravery and loyalty. I can’t imagine any other qualities one would want above bravery and loyalty in someone who is committed to serving and protecting their country.

If we are made to feel welcome, safe, respected and valued, there is little we wouldn’t do for our colleagues, friends, communities and families.