Thom's blog
The Real Reason Trump Banned Transgender People
The campaign version of Donald Trump said he would "fight for the LGBT community". He even said he would fight harder for them than Hillary Clinton!
"Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs."
Surprise, surprise! The campaign version of Donald Trump was lying.
In a series of tweets yesterday - 69 years to the day after Harry Truman integrated the armed forces - Donald Trump claimed that "after consultation with his Generals", he had decided that transgender Americans will "no longer serve in any capacity in the U.S. military".
His justification?
"The tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail":
"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. Thank you"
So the RAND corporation recently conducted a study of transgender integration into the military, and found that it would cost at a maximum $8.4 million annually - an amount that [would] have little impact on and represents an exceedingly small proportion of... overall DoD health care expenditures".
For the record, the military spends about $84 million every year on erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra.
Is this really about stigmatizing transgender Americans so Trump can shore up his support from the American Taliban for 2018?
According to Politico, Trump did this to ensure that some hard right congressmen support the defense funding bill, which put forward money for his wall.
-Thom
(What do you think? Tell us here.)
| 
