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Transgender military service bans harm military cohesion
Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from serving in the military has a chilling effect on all who serve, not just those who were banned. If you are transgender it impacts you directly, because no matter your combat readiness, years of service, or personal integrity with a stroke of a pen you are banned. It harms every other service member because they are losing valued colleagues and it opens the door to any other minority being banned along ideological grounds. There is nothing stopping the Trump administration using the same processes to ban women who use birth control, foreigners who seek to serve as a pathway to citizenship, and atheists from serving because they refuse to go to Christian acts of worship. Trans people are once again the canary in the coalmine, and every service member needs to resist or else their right to serve could be curtained on the caprices of the person in the White House.
Back in 2000 when I was 18 I sought to enlist in the UK army as a junior officer. I was told at the time girls do not serve in front line combat units, though I ultimately did not go through the process due to a chronic medical condition, which scuppered two subsequent attempts. Being trans stopped being an issue in 2000 for the UK military, and since then there have be numerous trans people who have openly served. Unlike the US…
