Trump’s ban on transgender military service people takes effect today, jeopardizing the livelihood of thousands.

The legislation banning trans people from openly serving in the military has been enacted and according to the Palm Center, about 13,700 people will lose their jobs as a result.

Gillian Bransetter, media relations manager for the National Center for Transgender Equality, told Advocate.

“The military is the largest employer in the nation and, as the USTS found, transgender people are twice as likely to have served in the Armed Forces as the general population.”

The 2015 US Trans Survey found 18% of all trans people have served in the military. The military is thought to be the single largest employer of trans people.

Trump first announced the ban in a series of tweets on July 26, 2017 and the White House formally announced the policy in March of 2018. That was blocked by a series of four injunctions.

In January 2019, the first injunction was lifted by an appeals court with the Supreme Court removing two others (from California and Washington state) the same month.

On March 27 the final hurdle was lifted, making way for the ban to be enforced today, Friday, April 12, 2019.

The Palm Center’s director Aaron Belkin is one of many who has called the ban

“a return to don’t ask, don’t tell. Fully 100% of transgender troops are threatened and stigmatised by this ban.” 

House speaker Nancy Pelosi is one of many Democrats to rebuke the ban, labelling it an

“act of cruelty”.

Trump’s claims that transgender people “burden” the military “with the tremendous medical costs” has also been wide refuted.

The RAND corporation estimated in 2016 that these costs would amount to somewhere between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually.

Much less that a few golf trips to Mar-a-Lago, for sure.

This is sickening (not in a good way) and I am daily ashamed to be a citizen under this President. Daily.

(Photo, YouTube; via Pink News)