Trump’s ban stuns transgender troops
President Donald Trump, in a series of tweets posted on the 69th anniversary of the executive order that desegregated the military, said Wednesday the government “will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military,” ending Pentagon plans to start recruiting them.
The White House offered no details about how such a policy would be implemented, but forcing out thousands of transgender troops already in the military would mark a dramatic turn from an Obama-era decision to allow them to openly serve.
Trump’s comments appeared to catch some in the
Pentagon by surprise and came while Defense Secretary James Mattis, who only weeks ago ordered a six-month delay in accepting new transgender recruits, was on vacation.
The announcement stunned many in the transgender community, one of them a former sailor who had been in Austin watching lawmakers advance a bill to restrict people’s ability to choose what public restroom to use.
“I know multiple trans people that were extremely enthusiastic about getting to sign up and serve,” said Angela Jenkins, 32, a former Houstonian who was in the Navy from 2004 to 2007 and now lives in Fredericksburg. “So this is all very, very devastating news, I’m sure, for them. And the people that are in the military right now are being threatened. Their jobs are being threatened.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump’s action.
“The president has expressed concerns since this Obama policy came into effect, but he’s also voiced that this is a very expensive and disruptive policy,” she said. “And based on consultation that he’s had with his national security team, came to the conclusion that it erodes military readiness and unit cohesion, and made the decision based on that.”
The Pentagon in 2016 allowed transgender troops to serve openly, part of a series of policy changes starting in 2010 that protected servicemen and women from being kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. It followed the end of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” a much-maligned Clinton-era policy that had allowed gay troops to serve as long as they did not reveal their sexual orientation. The action last year by then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter was likened to President Harry Truman’s decision to racially integrate a military that had long been segregated.
‘Deeply flawed’ projections
A RAND study done for the Pentagon found last year’s decision affected up to 7,000 activeduty and 4,000 Reserve troops, while UCLA’s Williams Institute put the number of transgender personnel at 15,500. Carter said the decision to let transgender troops serve openly was made in part to allow them to obtain medical care through the military, including surgeries, and that it would allow “talented Americans who are serving with distinction or who want the opportunity to serve.”
Before Carter’s action, transgender troops had to go to private care providers at their own expense. RAND found the costs of extending gender transitionrelated health care would rise between $2.4 million and $8.4 million a year.
The Center for Military Readiness, a Michigan-based organization that has opposed the expansion of women into the infantry, gays serving in the military and allowing transgender troops to openly serve, has called the Pentagon’s cost projections “deeply flawed.” The center’s president, Elaine Donnelly, said Wednesday that RAND’s work was influenced by sources in the LGBT community and cited a Family Research Council study that asserted the true cost of transgender medical care could run to billions of dollars over 10 years.
‘We’re an easy target’
In ending the transgender troop ban, Carter laid out a timetable for action through this year that would lead to accepting transgender troops by this summer for basic training. Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland had been poised to take its first transgender recruits early this month.
Trump upended all that while raising the issue of cost in three tweets in a span of 13 minutes.
The announcement appeared to surprise defense officials, who referred all questions about it to the White House — a highly unusual move on matters of such magnitude and complexity.
The transgender community — in Texas and beyond — viewed Trump’s announcement as a setback for equal rights.
“It appears the transgender community has become the newest smaller minority for hateful people to target,” said Phyllis Frye, an associate judge for Houston municipal courts who was discharged from the U.S. Army in 1972 for “sexual deviation.”
She transitioned in 1976 and became the nation’s first openly transgender judge.
Eighteen other countries allow transgender people to serve in the military, including Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom.
“There seems to be a war against our transgender brothers, sisters and friends, whether it be in Austin or in Washington,” said Mike Laster, one of two openly gay members of the Houston City Council.
“Why would we start picking on people who are sacrificing their lives for our country?” said Fiona Dawson, the co-director and executive producer of “TransMilitary,” a documentary set to be released in January. “To me, it feels like the president woke up this morning and said, ‘Who can I pick on? Who’s the most vulnerable?’”
Daniel Pons, who pronounces her name “Danielle,” said she felt betrayed by the government and that banning people like her from the military was “completely insulting.” A ban, she added, also would needlessly eliminate talented service members who want to serve their country.
“We’re an easy target. But what people don’t understand is that their freedom depends upon ours,” said Pons, 63, a veteran of the Army Reserve and National Guard who served in the Gulf War and came out as a transgender woman more than a decade ago. “If you can get rid of people in the LGBT community in the service, what that means is we lose out on our right to speak out and say that we served.”