Dishonorable Donald
Roughly 30 days ago, Defense Secretary Jim (Mad Dog) Mattis extended by six months an ongoing review of the military’s policy of allowing transgender men and women to continue to serve openly, as thousands have since an official shift last year. The delay, Mattis was careful to say at the time, “does not presuppose the outcome of the review.”
Mattis is a Marine general, but he’s never handled anyone like President Donald J. Trump.
With Mad Dog on vacation, with months left before a determination was due, Trump preemptively — on Twitter, no less — declared that “the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.”
The stated grounds: “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.” Those rationales do not hold up to scrutiny. “Tremendous medical costs”? A Pentagoncommissioned study by the Rand Corp. last year estimated that just 2,450 of the 1.2 million activeduty members of the military identify with a gender other than that of their birth, and that each year, about 65 of these would seek to transition from male to female or vice versa.
Estimated medical price tag: between $2.9 million and $4.2 million per year, a microscopic fraction of the military’s $6 billion health budget, which itself is a fraction of its $600 billion overall budget. Viagra for troops costs more.
“Disruption”? In an era in which we already allow gays and lesbians to serve, and in which they do so with distinction, that is greatly overstated.
People like Army Capt. Jennifer Peace, a trans woman, and Army Sgt. Shane Ortega, a trans man, ask only for the opportunity to serve their country. Even to die for it.
They are men and women of valor beyond anything Trump can comprehend.
The same exhaustive Rand analysis predicted that allowing open service by transgender people would have “minimal impact on readiness.” The experiences of the 18 nations that already allow transgender service, including Israel, the U.K., Australia and Germany, affirm that expectation.
Nor did Trump narrowly object to trans service in, say, combat. His offensively sweeping call for a ban “in any capacity” would eject all transgender supply clerks, intelligence analysts, secretaries and more. How? The White House has no clue.
The reasons Trump articulated are obviously pretextual. But the White House let slip what this is really about.
Politico reported that Trump lashed out after congressional Republicans engaged in a broader budget fight came to him looking for a statement on Pentagon-funded sex reassignment surgery.
Trump went far beyond that — and, out of the blue called for an all-out ban.
Jonathan Swan, of the news organization Axios, got this cheery read from a Trump administration official: “This forces Democrats in Rust Belt states like Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin to take complete ownership of this issue.”
We suspect this bit of corrosively cynical politics may explain why even socially conservative hawks like Sens. John McCain, Orrin Hatch and Joni Ernst rejected Trump’s decree.
“Any American who meets current medical and readiness standards should be allowed to continue serving,” McCain said. “There is no reason to force service members who are able to fight, train and deploy to leave the military — regardless of their gender identity.”
The rage of the commander-in-chief may be able to throw the country into a tizzy. But it cannot trump that principled stand.