Trump announces ban on transgender servicemembers ... in a series of three tweets

by Laura Clawson

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday, Jul. 26, 2017 Wednesday, Jul. 26, 2017 at 6:25:23am PDT

YOUNGSTOWN, OH - JULY 25: U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a rally at the Covelli Centre on July 25, 2017 in Youngstown, Ohio. The rally coincides with the Senates vote on GOP legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. (Photo by Justin Merriman/Getty Images)

Remember when Donald Trump was going to be the Republican who didn’t hate LGBT people? He even promised to be better than Hillary on LGBT issues! About that. Under President Obama, transgender people already serving in the military were allowed to come out and the process was started to allow transgender people to enlist. Trump postponed that process, and Wednesday morning he took to Twitter to make an announcement: yeah, he’s bringing discrimination back in.

After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

....Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

....victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

Campaign Action

This announcement comes weeks after far-right House Republicans failed to pass an amendment denying funding for transition-related medical treatment for transgender troops or transgender military family members, an effort based on fake numbers that it seems Trump bought into:

To justify that blatantly discriminatory act, Hartzler has seemingly invented the statistic that trans military service will cost the military $1.35 billion over the first ten years. Her office has refused to respond to multiple ThinkProgress requests for the source of that figure, which is 16 times higher than the highest estimates the RAND Corporation calculated. The Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ hate group, has since estimated figures even higher.

Trump’s move also comes days after former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Adm. Mike Mullen called on Congress to allow transgender troops and provide them needed medical care.