Trump says transgender individuals will not be allowed to serve in military

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TNS

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at a Make America Great Again rally at the Covelli Centre in Youngstown, Ohio, on Tuesday, July 25, 2017.

Casey McAnarney, Editor in Chief

In a series of tweets, President Donald J. Trump said that transgender individuals will no longer be allowed to serve in the United States Military. The reasoning behind this: The U.S. armed forces need to focus more on “decisive overwhelming victory” rather than accommodating transgender individuals.

This idea came from discussions with military experts, according to President Trump’s tweets, though he did not name any of these generals or experts. This is in direct contrast to the work done under the previous administration to integrate transgender individuals into the military by allowing them to openly serve as trans individuals as well as have the Pentagon cover the costs that come with medical treatments related to hormone therapy or gender transition. Though these accommodations have been questioned recently in Congress, with Missouri Republican Representative Vicki Hartzler proposing an amendment that would prevent the Pentagon from this form of spending, this is the first statement the president has made on this topic.

In his tweets, President Trump said “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thanks you.”

The series of tweets were met with criticism. The ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, responded to Trump stating “Thousands of trans service-members on the front lines deserve better from their commander-in-chief.” They then proceeded to direct the tweet at Trump and asked people to contact the ACLU. GQ, a men’s fashion and style news magazine, even tweeted out a previous story they had done on a former Navy Seal who came out as transgender.

Trump has not indicated how he would enforce this possible new policy. In a tweet from NPR, the news organizations stated that it is not “immediately clear how Trump intends to carry out the ban…Transgender people already serve in the military.”

In regards to what his family thinks of these posts, no statements have been made. Just a month ago, Trump’s daughter Ivanka tweeted out that she was proud to support her friends within the LGBTQIA community. She has not made any statements since her father’s tweets.

We are currently awaiting a response from the UNC Wilmington LGBTQIA Resource Office about these statements by the president.