Trump implements transgender military ban

By Ethan Alonzo, CONTRIBUTOR


President Trump placed a ban on transgender men and women from entering the military.
Last October, the Health and Human Services Department acted to remove the right for transgender men and women to identify by whichever gender they choose, forcing them to associate themselves with the gender they had at birth.
In two 5-4 voted decisions, the Supreme Court decided to allow the ban to proceed while it is still being discussed in the smaller courts.
The five Supreme Court justices who voted for the ban were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, according to The Washington Post.
Transgender men and women being enrolled in the military is not new.
“Around 2,450 transgender personnel in the active component (out of a total number of approximately 1.3 million active-component service members) and 1,510 in the Selected Reserve,” according to a study done by rand.org, a policy research organization.
Furthermore, there are between 29 and 129 service members who are active that will require transition-related care that may interfere with deployment.
Jorge Almaraz, a Program Director for California State University, East Bay’s Diversity and Inclusion Center, believes that the ban is discriminatory to those of the transgender community who want to serve our country.
“The backings to what they have to say, why the ban needs to be approved in the military are ridiculous. Being worried that the budget is spent on a lot of their transitioning when it’s a very small percentage,” says Almaraz. “There is this fear of comradery, that it would be interfered by having a person who identifies as a trans male or trans female.”
Kynnedi Hoyer, who is also a Program Director at the Diversity and Inclusion Center, believes the ban is unfair considering the transgender troops’ desire to protect their country, to a point of risking their lives.
“If there are people that are willing to enlist in the military and are willing to put their lives on the line for their country, I feel that there’s nothing more patriotic than that. And they should have the same respect as someone who isn’t transgender and wants to do the same thing,” said Hoyer.