President Trump has officially signed a presidential memo today instructing the Department of Defense to stop accepting new transgender recruits who wish to enroll in the military.
The move is a reversal of an Obama-era plan to allow transgender folks to serve openly in the U.S. military.
From The Hill:
The memo details Trump’s previous Twitter announcement last month that he would reinstate a ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military, and officially requests the Pentagon begin implementing the ban.
Trump’s memo bars transgender people from enlisting, but instructs Secretary of Defense James Mattis to further explore how to handle transgender people currently serving in the armed forces.
The memo also orders the Pentagon to stop paying for gender reassignment surgeries, except in cases that are already in progress to “protect the health of an individual.”
It also requests that the Pentagon develop an implementation plan for the ban by Feb. 21 2018, to be put in place on March 23, 2018.
On a call with reporters prior to the memo’s release, a White House official said Trump “spoke passionately” about the freedoms of the LGBT community, but based the policy on a “series of national security considerations,” according to reports.
Trump’s guidelines instruct the Defense and Homeland Security departments “to determine how to address transgender individuals currently serving based on military effectiveness and lethality, unitary cohesion, budgetary constraints, applicable law, and all factors that may be relevant,” a White House official said.
While Trump’s initial surprise tweet called for the ban for financial reasons, we all know now that the real reason is a group of GOP lawmakers who threatened to torpedo financing for his wall along the Mexican border if he didn’t acquiesce to their demands that he eject trans military members.
The Rand Corporation estimates medical costs for trans military members to be at most $8.4 million a year.
At the same time, the Department of Defense reportedly for male service members with erectile dysfunction.
Think on that for a minute – $41 million for limp penises is ok, but $8 million for capable trans soldiers is a bridge too far.
According to the latest poll from Quinnipiac University, 68% of Americans say transgender people should be allowed to serve in the U.S. military; 27% oppose the idea.
Additionally, a new report shows it could cost around $960 million to kick transgender people out of the the U.S. military. That means, in terms of lost training and replacement, over 100x the cost of medical treatments.
Put another way, it will take over 100 years to “break even” on the costs of kicking out transgender military service members.
