Trump is talking a LOT on his 17 day working vacation in Bedminster, NJ (mostly about blowing up the planet) but also weighing in again on his unpopular transgender military ban. Here’s what he said the other day in the press pool report,
“I have great respect for the community… I think I’ve had great support, or I’ve had great support from that community. I got a lot of votes. But the transgender, the military‘s working on it now… It’s been a very difficult situation and I think I’m doing a lot of people a favor by coming out and just saying it. As you know, it’s been a very complicated issue for the military, it’s been a very confusing issue for the military, and I think I’m doing the military a great favor.”
GLAAD summed it up best with a response on Twitter,
“Does respect look like stopping 15,000 trans service members from doing their jobs?“
And it’ll be EXPENSIVE! According to LGBTQ Nation, it could cost nearly a BILLION dollars to enact the ban,
A report from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and the Palm Center estimates that it would cost $960 million to fully implement Trump’s transgender ban, while the “tremendous” medical costs would be, at most, $8.4 million a year.
The $960 million estimate is the cost of replacing all trans people currently in the military. The report estimates that it costs an average of $75,000 to recruit and train someone in the military, and it estimates that there are 12,800 transgender people in the military (based on the 15,500 number floating around, but adjusted for a downsized military and excluding reserves).
$75,000 x 12,800 = $960 million.
But not everyone is publicly falling in line, to use military lingo. Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer says he would follow orders, but he strongly disagrees with them,
“We will process and take direction of a policy that is developed by the [Defense] secretary [with] direction from the president and march out smartly.
On a fundamental basis, any patriot that wants to serve and meets all the requirements should be able to serve in our military”
What he said.
(Photo, screen grab; via LGBTQ Nation)
