Two years following an unexpected, unprovoked tweet, one of Donald Trump’s most controversial announcements finally took effect after being voted on by the Supreme Court this past Tuesday: most openly transgender people will not be able to serve in the U.S. military. Despite having been able to sign up openly since January 2018, following a monumental Obama-era injunction that allowed transgender people to safely serve, the Department of Defense is working on removing those troops from both active and reserve duty, though it is not yet clear when the ban will go into effect. There are some exceptions for those willing to serve while being recognized according to the gender they were assigned at birth if they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. For reasons unbeknownst to the public at this moment, the Supreme Court was made to vote on short notice, without even hearing opposing arguments regarding the ban, ending up in a 5-4 voting tally.
The reasoning behind this blow was cited in 2017 by Trump himself as being “tremendous medical costs and disruption,” but following Tuesday’s ruling, no new official statement has been given by the White House. From this, it’s clear that this policy is based mostly, if not purely, in discrimination against transgender people, as those reasons are easily fallible. The RAND Corporation released study results exposing the fact that only anywhere from $2.4 – $8.4 million was spent on transgender medical services per year. Considering the fact that the government’s annual military budget totaled $574 billion in 2018, this logic is clearly not logic at all but simply alienating mindsets making their way into governmental policy.
One must also take into account the amount spent to treat erectile dysfunction in military personnel, a whopping $84 million by comparison. Sometimes, erectile dysfunction medication is prescribed to treat hypertension, amongst other heart conditions, but that exists as only a very small percentage. The military’s concern with men’s sexual health, something one would initially expect to be unnecessary for military troops, is surprisingly high. While one might argue that treatment for transgender-related medical services is unnecessary for a person to serve, keep in mind that many of the 102,885 active duty military men being prescribed erectile dysfunction medications are being done so for issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental issues. If the government is willing to provide medical funding for such a reason, spending significantly less to treat the obstacles that may occur for transgender service people (both on active duty and reserve) would not give the impression of being a significant complication.
The question of noteworthy disruption to regular military activity must be discerned as well, and rightfully so, as the safety of the nation shouldn’t be jeopardized to make allowances for anyone serving. It remains apparent, though, that transgender people have not disrupted the workings of the military to any great degree. Transgender people’s occasional decision to transition from their birth-assigned sex is a strenuous ordeal, which is a fair observation to make. However, so long as transitioning people can still competently and effectively complete the duties required of them, there is no reason they should be discharged or deemed unfit to serve.
Not only was the decision clearly discriminatory, it is ill-founded and unjust and was regarded as such even when it was initially introduced, as a district judge from Washington, D.C. believed it violated transgender people’s Fifth Amendment rights in 2017. And, even though former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis proposed rightfully that those willing to serve must also be willing to make sacrifices, giving up the core of one’s basic identity ought not be contained within that sacrifice.
The notion that transgender people are impeding on the military’s ability to be a Herculean force of power in the world’s affairs goes unproven, despite the Department of Justice’s apparent support for the ruling. The “professional military judgment” being exercised appears to exist as just an outlet to garner the president’s support and has little to no scientific or logistical basis to it. Removing the current 14,700 transgender people serving in the military would do far more harm than good, and replacing hardworking, loyal troops willing to fight subsists blatantly as a strategy to remove a marginalized group from the armed forces. Seeing as military enrollment is declining, removing such a large number of troops for such an unsupported reason is flatout destructive to the U.S. military and does far more harm than transgender people’s presence in it does.
