President Joe Biden signed an executive order rescinding former President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender individuals in the military on Monday.
“President Biden believes that gender identity should not be a bar to military service, and that America’s strength is found in its diversity,” the White House said in a statement. “This question of how to enable all qualified Americans to serve in the military is easily answered by recognizing our core values. America is stronger, at home and around the world, when it is inclusive.”
Trump announced the ban several months into his presidency, claiming that the military would be “burdened” with “the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender [sic] in the military would entail.”
He had been given falsely inflated estimates of the cost of sex-reassignment surgery at the time, journalist Bob Woodward reported in his book. Trump complained about the expense in a transphobic rant to then-White House senior aide Steve Bannon before issuing the ban.
“What the fuck? They’re coming in here, they’re getting clipped,” Trump reportedly griped. “Not going to happen.”
The Supreme Court upheld the administration’s ban in January 2019.
GOOD, was a stupid move to appease so-called Christians, to begin with, and was another example of the bigotry of both The Turnip and his followers.
Good. I’m a combat vet and thought the idea of bigotry governing who would get my back in the shit a stupid one. I don’t see how trans, gay or any other form of sexual identity would make a person a poor soldier. That takes guts and smarts.
I think this is the unity folks are yakking about?
It’s pretty much a given, if Trump did it, undo it.
It’s a start. But they have to figure out how to make these changes permanent. Can’t have this happen again, where Obama said it was okay, so trans folks started coming out, then trump said it wasn’t, so they started getting kicked out or had to go back into hiding, and now okay again…
I love how tossing all this garbage out is making us a little more equal.