Donald John Trump sought ways to avoid serving in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. He succeeded through a series of deferments that prevented Uncle Sam from drafting him into the service.
So now, decades later, the president wants to deny a group of Americans who seek to volunteer to serve their country and possibly die in that service the ability to perform their patriotic duty.
This is an exercise in bigotry against transgender Americans.
The president has issued a blanket ban on transgender individuals from serving in the military. He now wants the U.S. Supreme Court to fast-track the issue to a hearing before the court. He expects the court will rule in his favor and uphold the ban.
Donald Trump is pandering to his base. Period. That is precisely what is happening here. The Trump base of voters want to deny transgender individuals the opportunity to serve their country. Whatever the base wants, Trump wants.
The rest of us, those who believe that the transgender ban is discriminatory on its face do not matter one bit to this president.
Trump maintains some bogus notion that the medical costs of allowing transgender personnel to serve is too much for the Pentagon to bear. He ignores the reality that the Pentagon spends more on men’s erectile dysfunction than it would spend on those who are undergoing changes in their gender.
I don’t know what the Supreme Court will do. Just maybe, even with its conservative majority, the high court can rule that the transgender ban deprives the United States military of individuals who already have served with distinction . . . and will do so far into the future.
The ban is discriminatory on its face.
You may call it discrimination, but there are, and should be, standards for military service. Not all who want to serve are going to meet those standards. We do not allow the lame, the blind, or the mentally disabled to serve. Yes, I do consider anyone who doesn’t know what gender they were born to as mentally disabled. I do not care about sexual preferences, as that is a matter of choice, but if your mental state is so fragile that you would undertake an operation to attempt to change your physical sex, I doubt that you have the stability, emotional stability, that would be required in a combat situation. Other peoples lives depend a soldiers ability to take orders, respond to deadly situations, and keep your wits about you in a crisis. That’s not discrimination, that’s just common sense.
OK, we’ll just disagree on this one. I do not equate seeking to change one’s gender with “mental disability,” which is a term I associate with psychopaths, sociopaths and various forms of demonstrable mental illness. Indeed, transgender troops already are serving with distinction in the armed forces. Nevertheless, thanks for your comment. I appreciate your point of view, even if I disagree with it.