By Emily Paolicelli
Arts Editor
The Supreme Court recently voted 5-4 on a policy that will allow Trump to enforce a ban on transgender individuals in the military. However, there are no specifics as to what the ban will entail, and what the next steps will be.
A dear friend of mine, who identifies as a trans man, has recently enlisted in the military as a means to get away from an unfortunate home situation. However, due to the ban in place, he has enlisted with his assigned sex at birth and under his deadname, which I can only imagine will cause him great discomfort, identity issues, and dysphoria on a frequent basis. He is proof that this ban will not prevent trans people from enlisting, it will only prevent the trans people who do enlist from serving their country to the best of their ability.
The logic behind the ban is flawed; it is said to have been passed in an attempt to bring down medical costs related to gender reassignment surgery, hormone replacement therapy, etc.
However, is the transgender population in the military so significant in size that the unnecessarily large budget the armed forces already receives cannot allocate a small portion of the funds to transgender individuals?
A frequent argument that I hear against transgender people being in the military before the ban is that they are only enlisting to access cost-reduced or free medical services. However, has it not been the case that people have been enlisting in the military to access cost-reduced medical services, higher education, subsidized housing, etc., for years and years before, and continue to do so? There has been no action taken to prevent people from enlisting for these reasons, and there will be no reason to, simply because there is nothing about those things that offends people.
What I can’t wrap around my head is the idea that people claim that allowing transgender people to serve goes against their fundamental American morals and values; are your American values so important to you that you are willing to prevent people who genuinely want to serve from doing so? That statement is a telltale sign that you don’t truly value your country, you value your transphobic ideals over your country and use your patriotism as a thinly-veiled excuse to push your agenda forward.
Beyond preventing transgender individuals from enlisting, what else is the ban meant to do? Is there a plan being put in place to remove those already enlisted in the military? If they are to be removed, it leaves me dumbfounded that those being removed not only enlisted in the military without trouble but were recently told under the Obama administration that they are welcome in the military regardless of their personal identities only to face a complete retraction of that statement.
What will happen to those who originally enlisted in the military as a means to more easily access medical transitioning services? To those who already began their medical transition? Will they be forced to detransition, or will they be grandfathered into the Obama-era policy? There are many questions that have yet to be answered.
