Military veterans label Donanld Trump’s transgender ban an ’embrace of hate’
Anti-Trump protesters in New York (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
US military veterans have lashed out at President Trump’s plans to ban transgender people from serving.
Campaign group VoteVets has labelled the decision an “embrace of hate” in a no-holds-barred statement published Wednesday.
It was revealed today that a White House memo directs the Defence Department to enforce the ban within six months.
The new policy, once enforced, will mean Defence Secretary James Mattis would have the power to dismiss service personnel purely because they are transgender.
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Trump enraged LGBT activists by announcing the surprise ban on Twitter.
Commenting on the policy, Vote Vets Tweeted: “There’s NO reason for a transgender ban. Military isn’t asking for it. Americans don’t want it.
“This is about Trump embrace of hate. Period.”
In a poll of nearly 1,000 voters, VoteVets found that 69% of people believed that if a transgendered service member should stay in the military if they can do their job.
Only 22% said that “we should remove all transgender troops from the military.”
When it came to Republican voters only 48% said transgender troops should serve even if they can do their job.
President Trump wrote on Twitter: “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.”
The policy change is said to have taken military bosses by surprise, with Trump reportedly not briefing colleagues on his decision.
Admiral of the US Coast Guard last month said he would defy the ban, and said he had personally spoken to all out trans members of the Coast Guard.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, subsequently had to clarify that there would be no change of Pentagon policy until details of the proposal were laid out.
The memo orders military bosses to consider a service member’s “deployability” when considering hiring them, or keeping them as US military members.
It also directs the defense department to stop spending money on medical treatment, such as hormone therapy, or hiring trans service members.
The decision was allegedly made to appease anti-LGBT Republican lawmakers, as Trump struggles to pass his domestic policy agenda.
Out trans former Navy SEAL Kristin Beck challenged President Trump to tell her to her face that she is “not worthy” after he announced the policy.
She also noted the negligible cost of providing the healthcare to trans troops compared to other military costs.
Trump has since claimed he was doing the military “a great favour” by banning out transgender people from serving.
In a follow-up statement, the President said he has “great respect for the community” but that he thinks he is doing a “great favour” to the military by attempting to ban trans people from serving openly.
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He said: “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 favour by coming out and just saying it.”
He added: “As you know, it’s been a very complicated issue for the military, and I think I’m doing the military a great favour.”
A poll found that a majority of military families oppose the ban.
