{"id":139053,"date":"2019-06-06T01:07:08","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T07:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=139053"},"modified":"2019-06-06T01:07:08","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T07:07:08","slug":"donald-trump-revisits-why-he-banned-transgender-folk-from-the-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/06\/06\/donald-trump-revisits-why-he-banned-transgender-folk-from-the-military.html","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump revisits why he banned transgender folk from the military"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, you British press. You don&#8217;t sweat over whether you&#8217;ll be invited to the next US Presidential Press Conference, so you&#8217;re free,\u00a0<em>free,<\/em> to ask irritating questions &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>On his trip to the UK, Donald granted a single interview. It was to\u00a0Piers Morgan (a one-time &#8220;Celebrity Apprentice&#8221; contestant), who actually raised some difficult issues for Donald to answer.\u00a0 While <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/europe\/trump-pressed-on-the-environment-in-uk-visit-says-climate-change-goes-both-ways\/2019\/06\/05\/77c8750c-8717-11e9-9d73-e2ba6bbf1b9b_story.html?utm_term=.a3a6bc3215b8\">his farcical answers about climate change<\/a> drew the most national press attention, I found his answers about transgender folk in the military to be even more indicative of &#8230; well, something unpleasant.<\/p>\n<p>Morgan pressed Trump about his self-trumpeted support for LGBT* folk, in the face of multiple actions against that community, in particular transgender people, and specifically booting them out of the military.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&#39;You have to have a standard and you have to stick by that standard.&#39;<\/p>\n<p>The POTUS defends his decision to ban transgender people from serving in the military.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/piersmorgan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@piersmorgan<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/GMBTrump?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#GMBTrump<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/heBUjhwiUH\">pic.twitter.com\/heBUjhwiUH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Good Morning Britain (@GMB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GMB\/status\/1136160247322742784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Trump trotted out a singular reason &#8212; the incredibly high cost of dealing with transgender folk in transition. The problem is, not only is that not what his administration argued in court about the ban, it&#8217;s also simply not true.<\/p>\n<p>Quoth Donald:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Because they take massive amounts of drugs &#8212; they have to &#8212; and also, and you&#8217;re not allowed to take drugs, you know, in the military, you&#8217;re not allowed to take any drugs, you take an aspirin. And they have to, after the operation, they have to, they have no choice, they have to. And you have to actually break rules and regulations in order to have that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When Morgan noted that the costs of hormone therapy were relatively small, and less than the amount the Pentagon spends on Viagra prescriptions, Trump went on:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Well, it is what it is. Look, massive amounts, and, also, people were going in and then asking for the operation, and the operation is $200,000, $250,000, and getting the operation, the recovery period is long, and they have to take large amounts of drugs after that, for whatever reason, but large amounts, and that&#8217;s not &#8212; the way it is. I mean, you can&#8217;t do that. So, yeah, I said, when it came time to make a decision on that, and because of the drugs, and also because of the cost of the operation, people were going in &#8212;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Morgan noted the number of transgender folk who had served with distinction. Trump replied:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Well, I&#8217;m proud of them, I&#8217;m proud of them, I think it&#8217;s great, but you have to have a standard, and you have to stick by that standard. And we have a great military, and I want to keep it that way, and maybe they&#8217;d be phenomenal, I think they probably would be. But, again, you have very strict rules and regulations on drugs and prescription drugs and all of these different things and &#8212; they blow it out of the water.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>How many ways is this inaccurate? Let me hit a couple, speaking in the context of <a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/27\/presenting-my-son-james.html\">having a transmale son<\/a> who is going through treatment, etc., at the present time.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Actively serving military personnel <em>are<\/em>, in fact, &#8220;allowed to take drugs&#8221; that are prescribed. To take a simple case, military personnel can be diabetic and still serve, even as they\u00a0have to take insulin.Indeed, the Trump Administration&#8217;s own self-justifying re-study of transfolk in the military found that\u00a0&#8220;roughly three times more cisgender men want testosterone supplements than transgender patients.&#8221; And, of course, most famously (and as Morgan points out), the Pentagon spends significantly more on Viagra for serving personnel than it has ever spent on hormone treatment for trans folk.\n<p>Speaking anecdotally, the required hormone treatment is not &#8220;massive,&#8221; and is, in fact, not even all that frequent. It&#8217;s certainly less obtrusive or regular than insulin shots.<\/li>\n<li>In no world except, perhaps, high fashion is gender reassignment surgery &#8212; &#8220;the operation&#8221; &#8212; a six-figure number, even a low six-figure number. That&#8217;s an order of magnitude higher (based on the Pentagon&#8217;s own numbers) than even full-blown surgery, something that <em>not<\/em> all transgender folk go in for.<\/li>\n<li>The idea that transgender folk are enlisting in the military in &#8220;massive amounts,&#8221; just to get gender reassignment surgery &#8212; which doesn&#8217;t remove from them the obligation to serve, potentially in combat zone &#8212; seems &#8230; a bit far-fetched. Okay, it seems like a paranoid delusion.On the other hand, is it any different from someone saying, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to join the Army so I can get trained for free in XYZ &#8230; and so that I get access to VA benefits for the rest of my life&#8221;?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The other point worth noting is that this is only a small fraction of the arguments previously raised by Trump&#8217;s Administration in court as to why they couldn&#8217;t possibly have trans folk serving (even though they&#8217;ve\u00a0<em>been<\/em> serving with distinction). Those arguments included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Arguments about &#8220;unit cohesion&#8221; in the face of transwomen being grouped with ciswomen (or transmen being grouped with cismen) &#8212; an argument a federal judge noted echoed arguments as to why blacks couldn&#8217;t possibly serve alongside whites, or why women couldn&#8217;t possibly be admitted into the military.<\/li>\n<li>Arguments (based on debunked studies) about whether trans folk were mentally or emotionally stable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Despite Donald&#8217;s expressed sentiment that trans folk would be &#8220;phenomenal&#8221; in the military, despite fact checking by the interviewer, despite the noted track record of openly trans folk serving in the military &#8230; Donald just won&#8217;t have it.<\/p>\n<p>Which raises the question: is it simply because he personally thinks trans folk are icky and deluded and unfit (no matter what he says publicly)? Or is it because he feel he can score points among supporters who think trans folk are icky and deluded and unfit (no matter what he says publicly)?<\/p>\n<p>Neither says much about the coherence of Donald&#8217; statements or his moral leadership.<\/p>\n<p><em>Do you want to know more?<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/trump-claims-banned-trans-people-from-military-massive-amounts-of-drugs-396f5335af22\/\">Trump says he banned trans military service because the costs were too high. He didn\u2019t. \u2013 ThinkProgress<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2019\/06\/trump-piers-morgan-transgender-troops-climate-change\/\">Trump Gave Only One Interview During His UK State Visit. It Did Not Go Well. \u2013 Mother Jones<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/administration\/447035-piers-morgan-presses-trump-on-how-he-can-support-lgbtq-community-and\">Piers Morgan asks Trump how he can support LGBTQ rights and ban trans people from military | TheHill<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/06\/05\/politics\/trump-transgender-military-ban-fact-check\/index.html\">Fact check: Trump claims transgender military ban over drug use &#8211; CNNPolitics<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/feature\/nbc-out\/another-trump-falsehood-trans-people-take-massive-amounts-drugs-n1014221\">Another Trump falsehood: Trans troops take &#8216;massive amounts of drugs&#8217;<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Which is, at best, delusional. At worst, it&#8217;s simple self-justified prejudice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[350,70,25,349,1071],"tags":[1251,1362,1077],"class_list":["post-139053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-civil-liberties","category-health-science","category-gay-stuff","category-military","category-trump","tag-lgbt","tag-trans","tag-trump"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/trump-lgbt-flag.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":134439,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/25\/expected-trump-moves-forward-military-transgender-semi-ban.html","url_meta":{"origin":139053,"position":0},"title":"As expected, Trump moves forward with a military transgender semi-ban","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 25-Aug-17 4:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I use the term \"semi-ban\" intentionally, as the measure bans new openly transgender recruits, but leaves in question the fate of the hundreds of (openly) transgender service members currently in uniform. It does, though, make it clear that the Defense Dept. cannot pay for any medical care regimens for those\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/unnamed-7-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":134173,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/10\/trump-babbles-transgender-people-military.html","url_meta":{"origin":139053,"position":1},"title":"Trump babbles some more about transgender people in the military","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 10-Aug-17 6:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Back on 26 July, Trump rambled off a prepared (but unexpected) trio of tweets about how transgender people would not be allowed to serve in the military. Apparently he's given the Pentagon no further instruction, no policy guidelines about what to do regarding trans folk already serving, etc. The Pentagon,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;LGBTQ &amp;c&quot;","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &amp;c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Transgender-Trump-ban-rtr-img1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Transgender-Trump-ban-rtr-img1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Transgender-Trump-ban-rtr-img1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Transgender-Trump-ban-rtr-img1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Transgender-Trump-ban-rtr-img1.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Transgender-Trump-ban-rtr-img1.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":135620,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/12\/us-military-will-enlist-transgender-people-1-january.html","url_meta":{"origin":139053,"position":2},"title":"The US military will enlist transgender people as of 1 January","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 12-Dec-17 3:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A third federal court has ruled there was no justifiable basis for the Pentagon to deny such enlistment, despite Trump's orders to do so. Equal protection under the law -- a Constitutional provision -- means the law cannot treat people differently without a compelling reason. None has been presented as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/unnamed-3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":135218,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/30\/trumps-transgender-military-ban-gets-blocked-largely-thanks-trump.html","url_meta":{"origin":139053,"position":3},"title":"Trump&#8217;s transgender military ban gets blocked &#8212; largely thanks to Trump","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 30-Oct-17 6:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Donald Trump remains his own worst enemy when it comes to trying to implement his off-the-cuff whimsical base-pleasing policy shifts. His Muslim travel ban, for example, got into repeated hot water because, while the Justice Dept. tried to claim it wasn't a Muslim ban, it was hard to argue that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/transgender-military.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":133950,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/is-trumps-transgender-military-ban-pandering-or-petulance.html","url_meta":{"origin":139053,"position":4},"title":"Is Trump&#039;s transgender military ban pandering or petulance?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 26-Jul-17 11:57am","format":false,"excerpt":"Because it sure doesn't seem to be based on sound military, medical, or fiscal policy.Money quote:\u275d This would be a military health-care spending increase of 0.04 to 0.13 percent. Even in the most extreme case, it is one tenth of the annual $84 million that the military spends on medication\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134015,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/01\/over-50-retired-admirals-and-generals-ask-trump-to-reverse-his-transgender-ban.html","url_meta":{"origin":139053,"position":5},"title":"Over 50 retired admirals and generals ask Trump to reverse his transgender ban","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 1-Aug-17 3:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Not that, as far as I've read, Trump has done anything more than tweet a statement about banning all transgender individuals from the military, but a group of retired generals and admirals have called on him to formally retract that tweet. \u275d The top military officials said in a letter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139056,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139053\/revisions\/139056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}