Rick Perry, who wanted to ban gays from the military, thrilled with transgender ban
Donald Trump’s Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who is most famous for attacking gay people serving in the military, is an unsurprising supporter of banning transgender people serving in the military.
Perry, the former Governor of Texas, is well-known for leading the charge against gay people being allowed to serve in the military.
The politician releasing a notorious ad during an ill-fated run for President in 2012 claiming there’s “something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas”.
We’re sure it’s entirely unrelated to his on-the-record bigotry that Perry is now overtly supporting the administration’s ban on transgender troops.
After Trump hastily announced a new policy banning transgender people from the armed forces, Perry was mobilised to defend the policy in the media.
According to the Texas Tribune, Perry told reporters: “I totally support the president in his decision.”
He said: “The idea that the American people need to be paying for these types of operations to change your sex is not very wise from a standpoint of economics.
“I think the president makes some good decisions about making sure that we have a force that is capable.”
The cost of transgender troops in the miltiary was estimated at $2.4 million to $8.4 million, while the armed forces spend ten times as much – a whopping $84 million – on erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra annually.
Both figures are a drop in the bucket of the military’s $600 billion budget, but Perry stuck to his proverbial guns.
When a reporter pointed out the stat, he said: “You know what, I don’t check on the price of Viagra.”
Perry has a long history of anti-LGBT comments.
While serving as Texas Governor in 2014, he compared gay people to alcoholics.
He had claimed: “Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that.
“I may have the genetic coding that I’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way.”
His comments came after the Texas Republican Convention announced its support for gay-to-straight conversion therapy.
Running for President again last year, the former Governor launched an attack on the Boy Scouts of America after the organisation opted to end a ban on openly gay scoutmasters.
Perry had claimed: “Openly active gays, particularly advocates, present a problem. Because gay activism is central to their lives, it would unavoidably be a topic of conversation within a Scout troop. This would distract from the mission of scouting.”
Asked whether he would retract the comments, he insisted: “I believe that scouting would be better off if they didn’t have openly gay scoutmasters.”
The Trump official recently publicly attacked a gay university student – leading to a barrage of homophobic threats.
