TFA Houston

The Presidential Tweets banning transgender individuals from the U.S. military are disappointing, but not surprising. As with many of the President’s twitter announcements, they are poorly thought out, lacking in fact, and intended entirely for short-term partisan political gain.
Transgender individuals have proudly served in our country’s Military since the earliest days of our nation and will continue to do so. The president’s ban is a ban on open service, not a ban on service.
During the Obama administration, the Defense Department undertook an extensive study of the cost and effect of transgender individuals openly serving in the United States military. The conclusion was that the U.S. Military could easily accommodate open service by transgender individuals and that the cost would be minimal and possibly offset by increased efficiency and reduced mental health problems. This fact based study led to the implementation of policies that encouraged transgender individuals to openly serve in our nation’s armed services.
The President tweeted. “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,” These “tremendous medical costs” are much less than one Trump golfing weekend and the “disruption” simply does not exist.
Unfortunately, the Trump policy will have an undeserved negative impact on many transgender individuals who are currently proudly and openly serving their country. All those serving in our military deserve our respect and appreciation. It is disgraceful for the commander in chief to attack those serving under him for purely political reasons. It is these actions of the commander in chief that threaten our nation’s security, not the brave service of transgender individuals.