Donald Trump spit out three tweets a week ago stating that Transgender troops will no longer be allowed to serve in the military, citing the high cost of medical necessities for them.
Head Nazi and Art of War fetishist Seb Gorka also weighed in, though he doesn't try to hide behind cost and instead just states the military is not a place for social experimentation
So let's take Trump's reasoning first. The Rand Corp. was hired by the DoD to give an estimate of how much it costs to take care of the medical needs of transgender troops, and it comes to, at the high end, $8.4M. We could stop production on a couple of M1- Abrams tanks and cover that with some change left over to take everyone out for ice cream. Hell, Congress keeps buying the damn things even though we keep saying no to the tanks.
Under ten million is literally nothing when it comes to the military. Do a couple fewer drone strikes in the year and you'll have it covered. It's cowardly to blame a decision like this on cost when we're the richest country in the world. Then again, one in six kids goes to bed hungry in this country, so we're not exactly good with budgeting.
How about Gorka, the man who never served in the military but has some opinions on ideology. Unsurprising that the dude with Nazi ties is against "undesirables" in the military. But sure, lets kick out part of the military because servicemembers you will never encounter in life may end up laying down their lives to save your worthless hide. Nothing but abject bigotry could lead you to make a tweet like this, and
Of course the military is a social experiment and a petri dish. Where else can you get a cross section of the American population like you can in the Army? People join up from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. All kinds of races, nationalities and ethnicity are mixed in. You're never going to find a better place to test out what may or may not work in the real world. And the best part is that if you order it, the military HAS to do it!
Of course, we're not worried because the DoD isn't dumb enough to make policy decisions based on tweets, and literally nothing is going to happen other than some chest beating from the alt-right and a maligned group of people feeling that tightening in their collective chests as they are told, once more, they aren't welcome. This isn't about kicking anyone out of the Army. This is about making transgender people feel unwelcome once again.
We welcome you, and as long as you can shoot, move, and communicate, you can join my stack team any day.
Finally, please take a look at Adrian's piece about the need for viagra in for Soldiers suffering from PTSD right here.