Cover for U.S. president’s latest cruelty is uniquely disturbing
Last April, when I interviewed Jennifer Pritzker, the world’s first openly transgender billionaire and a retired U.S. army colonel, she told me “knowledge dispels fear.” This was a motto Pritzker borrowed from the British Royal Air Force, a motto she hoped might warm Americans to the idea of transgender men and women serving openly in the U.S. military.
The prospect didn’t seem so radical at the time. A number of major corporations, including PayPal, had recently voiced support for transgender rights in light of so-called bathroom bills that sought to bar trans people from using the restrooms of their choice. And only a few months later, the Pentagon, under president Barack Obama, would end a ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military.
It appeared as though the U.S. was living in a moment when knowledge might actually dispel fear.
Unfortunately, that moment has passed. Today, Americans are living in a moment of cruel opportunism in which knowledge is incapable of dispelling fear in the Oval Office, because it can’t even make it through the door. In fact, the current president of the United States appears to be allergic to it. Despite credible research indicating that transgender people pose no threat to military cohesion, or the health of the military budget (one study puts the number of trans service members in the U.S. military at about 2,450 — not nearly high enough to burden the system), Trump announced Wednesday via Twitter that transgender people are no longer welcome in the nation’s army.
“After consultation with my Generals and military experts,” the president tweeted on Wednesday, “please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
It would have been bad enough had Trump just told the truth about why he made this announcement, an explanation that I imagine might sound something like this: “My friends and I needed a convenient scapegoat to distract from all that collusion stuff and rally support among social conservatives, so we decided to pick on transgender people because we think they’re gross and weird. Sad!” But Trump’s cover for his cruelty — that he won’t allow transgender people to serve because their medical needs will financially burden the system — is uniquely disturbing. It sets a dangerous precedent in which people who risk their lives for their country are disposable to that country when their health care becomes costly or difficult.
This isn’t an issue that affects only transgender Americans who wish to serve in the military, but potentially anyone whose health care may be perceived by some as an unnecessary encumbrance. Think, for example, about mental health, an area prone to enormous stigma that the U.S. military already struggles with. According to a study from 2014 by the Rand Corp., an American military think-tank, “Despite the efforts of both the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the Veterans Health Administration to enhance mental health services, many service members are not regularly seeking needed care when they have mental health symptoms or disorders.”
It’s hard to believe this reluctance to seek help will diminish any time soon, when the president of the United States has made it crystal clear on Twitter that he values the military’s bottom line more than he values the health and well-being of its service members.
But what else can we honestly expect from a man who was granted five draft deferments during the Vietnam War and yet doesn’t hesitate one bit to label a burden those people who risk life and limb for their country?
Nothing good. Jennifer Pritzker’s hope that knowledge might dispel fear will remain as is — a hope, for at least another three years. Emma Teitel is a national affairs columnist.
Trump has made it crystal clear that he values the military’s bottom line more than the well-being of its members