Transgender soldiers aren’t dispensable

The creeping bigotry of the Trump administration is blossoming into action. The latest target: transgender soldiers. Who’s next?

President Trump decreed Wednesday morning that transgender people would be banned from serving in the military “in any capacity,” citing — in an apparently spur of the moment tweetstorm — their “tremendous” medical costs.

According to an analysis by the Military Times, the military spends 10 times as much on erectile dysfunction medicines (read: Viagra) — $84 million annually — as it does on yearly transitionrelated medical care for active-duty transgender service members.

No, according to Politico, this snap decision was to settle a budget argument between conservatives, who balked at the medical costs for transgender soldiers, and moderate Republicans, who thought denying those relatively modest costs — $3 million to $8 million a year in a $50 billion medical budget — would be discriminatory.

Easy fix, figured the president. Dump the transgender service members. Just like that. They are, in his view, expendable.

At stake in the budget squabble was funding for Trump’s increasingly lunatic border wall. (Now it has to be a see-through wall so Americans can look out for 60-pound packages of drugs being tossed over it from Mexico and hitting people on the head. Really. He said this. Apparently drug cartels have adopted Wile E. Coyote delivery methods.)

By varying estimates there are between 1,320 and 6,630 transgender active-duty service members and another 1,500 in the reserves, where medical benefits are more limited. At a time when recruiting is not exactly easy and re-enlistment is a tough sell — with wars of indeterminate purpose and length heating up — can the nation really afford to toss those people away?

Trump and some — not all — military leaders buy into the prejudice and fears of people who are uncomfortable with others not precisely like them. Professionalism, hard work and just getting the job done do not matter.

While female, gay and transgender enlistees serve with distinction, some men don’t like having to work with them. But other nations welcome, even require the services of all: for example, Israel, whose military is renowned for precision and effectiveness. What President Trump calls “Winning.”

Speaking with Business Insider on Wednesday, a retired Navy SEAL of 20 years took on the president.

“Let’s meet face to face and you tell me I’m not worthy,” Kristin Beck said. “Transgender doesn’t matter. Do your service.”

Beck was deployed 13 times, serving in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Business Insider. She scoffed at Trump’s implication that other service members’ discomfort in working with transgender colleagues interferes with military effectiveness.

“A very professional unit with great leadership wouldn’t have a problem,” Beck said.

She’s right. It’s all in the leadership. And leadership starts at the top.

Transgender soldiers risking their lives for all of us are not the issue. President Trump is.