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Trump’s next discriminatory policy: banning transgender Americans from military

This morning, Donald Trump took a break from publicly beefing with his attorney general Jeff Sessions to announce that transgender Americans can no longer serve in the military.

Citing the “tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail” is a completely nonsensical and bullshit excuse for a bigoted policy put in place to catalyze the culture wars that the GOP’s Trumpist base feeds off of.

An official in the Trump administration spoke to Jonathan Swan, political reporter at Axios, saying that this move will make Democratic victories in Rust Belt states more difficult.

https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/890202683721863168

While this isn’t the official stance of the White House, it’s a pretty cynical statement.

This worldview uses people’s civil rights as some sort of identity politics issue to further divide the country and win elections because Trump and his crew assume blue collar white voters don’t want transgender people in the military.

Of course, there is zero evidence that having transgender people serve in the military would have any negative “medical costs” or affect their ability to deploy.

It seems like Trump wanted to issue a strong, socially conservative initiative that would gain support from his base and distract from the omnipresent Russia probe swirling around him.

But this may not be such a widely-supported move by conservatives.

Even Sen. Richard Shelby, an old GOP curmudgeon from Alabama, doesn’t support a ban that would actively prevent Americans from being able to serve in the military.

It’s also revealing that the Pentagon has referred all questions on this matter back to the White House. This was very much a political and discriminatory move by Trump and his allies to shore up a base of bigoted, confused, and disenfranchised white people.

This move is not in line with actual facts. Especially as the DoD employs the most transgender people in the country.

For someone who claims that he wants to make the military stronger, this actively removes a segment of the population from fighting wars or protecting American interests.

Last year, Trump campaigned on a promise that he would protect the LGBT community, although it’s literally possible he didn’t know what those letters meant.

And Ivanka, what say you?

Remember when Caitlyn Jenner said Trump would help the LGBT community?

This is a pretty dark moment in our country’s history.

In the meantime, donate to the Transgender Law Center to help protect the most vulnerable segment of the country’s population.