Trump’s Transgender Scapegoat

What are we hiding, Tricky Trump?

Wes Webb
Wes Webb
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

Donald Trump’s declaration of a ban on transgender military service members comes via Twitter.

A surprise to the most obvious experts in military science or trans issues because he didn’t consult them and because presidents can’t tweet laws into being. He pits all of trans experience against erroneous, behemoth “costs and disruption” to some kind of “decisive and overwhelming victory” of our military. He is scapegoating trans Americans. But to what end? And how are we responding?

First the “disruption.” This is the implication that service members in transition are patently dangerous for our national security. The hysterical rhetoric I see this inciting, particularly in social media, is very concerning. But leveraging fear of the enemy, whoever or whatever it may be at the moment, is a tried and true tactic that distorts patriotism, humanity, and common sense. Compartmentalizing our supposed acceptance of trans people from our rejection of their military service is an empty, contradictory exercise. We would do well to set that aside. The Department of Defense has. The 2016 study commissioned by the DoD on the implications of transgender personnel to serve openly concludes the estimated “impact on readiness to be negligible.” As of this writing, the DoD website still includes its comprehensive and reasoned report on policy implementation to ensure both military fortitude and the dignity of transgender service members. Trans does not = psychological or physical unfitness to serve. Period. We evaluate individuals, not groups.

And the “costs.” We are very fortunate that costs of care for trans service members and vets is an utterly simple moral issue. There is plenty of wealth in this country for everyone to receive the care they need. There are ample models of nations that make that happen. We are unfortunate that enough people are content with hoarding that wealth away, which essentially boils down to a notion that some lives are more valuable than others. Plain as day, this bizarre, dictatorial tweet lands right in the midst of another rabid push to dismantle the ACA, which thankfully once again has failed. But follow the money — many people just don’t care about other people.

It’s deeply sad, the confusion people experience when it comes to trans issues, blind to the strictures of gender in their own lives. But particularly frustrating as that confusion so often expresses itself as a certainty that they know more about trans issues than trans people themselves and specialists in trans healthcare, social services, education, policy, history. I’m seeing a good deal of folks assuming that being trans means undergoing hormone therapy or sex reassignment/gender confirmation surgery or referring to trans folks as “transgenders” or “transgendered” (GLAAD has a great Transgender FAQ page.) A lot of good people generating ideas and feelings based on distorted or simply false information, of which DT provides us with an inexhaustible supply.

Then the question I think we all need to ask when DT comes out with statements seemingly out of left field: for what might he be creating a smoke screen or stirring the pot? Why this? Why now?

Let’s keep in mind his patterns of deflection and projection. This issue wants essentially to paint trans people as greedy — an ugly narrative of expecting more than their fair share for medical procedures born out of vanity and instability. There is no evidence to suggest that this must be true of any particular trans person. But endless evidence stares us in the face every day of DT’s greed, vanity, and instability. And I think it no coincidence that questions about trans folks’ fitness to serve in the military are emerging under the paradoxically incoherent and masterfully manipulative rhetoric of a person so clearly unfit to serve as president.

And let’s at least keep the Russia probe in the back of our minds. Trans people are not a threat to military stability and national security. The greatest threat resides in the person occupying the office of the president. DT is scapegoating trans service members and veterans for his own interests.

Wes Webb

Written by

Wes Webb

Actor, singer, writer, composer, and master teacher. More info: www.weswebb.com

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