White House aide Sebastian Gorka said Thursday that President Donald Trump had announced his intention to ban all transgender individuals from the U.S. military because the military is “not there to reflect America” or “be socially engineered.”
And, despite the fact that the U.S. military is an all-volunteer force, Gorka said Trump’s decision — made “out of the warmth of his consideration of this population” — was a response to what he characterized as an attempt “to try and force them into the hierarchical military environment where they are under the utmost pressure to kill or be killed.”
In an interview with BBC Radio 4 Today, Gorka was asked, in reference to Trump: “How can it be the case that he is speaking for the whole military if he is speaking out against one section of the military?”
“The military is not a microcosm of civilian society,” Gorka responded. “They are not there to reflect America. They are there to kill people and blow stuff up, they are not there to be social engineered.”
“We want people who are transgender to live happy lives,” he continued. “But we want unit cohesion and we want combat effectiveness. There are leading studies from the medical establishment, for example, that state that the transgender community has a 40 percent suicide attempt rate. That is a tragedy. We need to help those people, we don’t need to try and force them into the hierarchical military environment where they are under the utmost pressure to kill or be killed, and that is why the President is doing this — out of the warmth of his consideration of this population.
“It probably doesn’t feel like warmth from the transgender perspective,” a BBC presenter asked.
“Well, we’re not here to represent one part of America,” Gorka said. “We are here to represent all of America and protect Americans.” (Listen at 6:32 here.)
Gorka elaborated on Twitter, calling the acknowledgement of transgender servicemembers “Obama-era social engineering.”
Under @realDonaldTrump we refuse to treat the American military as an ideological petri dish.
Obama-era social engineering is over. https://t.co/2tkGIH9OPW
— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) July 28, 2017
Gorka’s reasoning adds to multiple justifications provided by the White House for Trump’s abrupt announcement of the ban — for which the Pentagon was apparently not at all prepared to comment, and which earned the bipartisan criticism from Congress.
In announcing the ban on Twitter Wednesday, Trump said that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
Later that day, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a press briefing that the ban was “about military readiness, this was about unit cohesion, this was about resources within the military.”
Gorka’s comments drew criticism from, among many others, Retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. and CNN analyst John Kirby. In a series of tweets, he said Gorka, who served at one point in the British army reserves, had mischaracterized the U.S. military.
1/Normally I ignore .@SebGorka. But this is offensive. I can't sit by as someone who never wore our uniform pretends he knows what it means. https://t.co/FsB9moWKws
— John Kirby (@johnfkirby63) July 28, 2017
2/Fact: US military IS a microcosm of American society & should be representative of that society – ALL of it. Diversity is a strength. https://t.co/yCBuJBtlfO
— John Kirby (@johnfkirby63) July 28, 2017
3/We're an all-volunteer force w/high standards. If you meet those standards — in THIS country — you should have opportunity to defend it. https://t.co/jpJLi8WRfl
— John Kirby (@johnfkirby63) July 28, 2017
4/Transgender troops serving openly for more than a year with no disruptions to unit cohesion, no morale probs, NO impact on readiness. https://t.co/VptMlRWBJG
— John Kirby (@johnfkirby63) July 28, 2017
5/Quite to contrary, the skills these troops bring to the fight – just like that of former Navy SEAL Kristin Beck – make us stronger. https://t.co/W7FyK9gcrK
— John Kirby (@johnfkirby63) July 28, 2017
6/Go ahead, tell her all about how to kill people and blow things up. I'd love to see how that conversation goes. https://t.co/kHeYSRPEu9
— John Kirby (@johnfkirby63) July 28, 2017
7/Unless you’re willing to wear U.S. uniform, suggest you leave decisions about what’s best for troops to those who know what they’re doing. https://t.co/8o8es1c4zW
— John Kirby (@johnfkirby63) July 28, 2017
