A Tale Of Compassion and Hypocrisy
One is more prevalent than the other
It’s been an intriguing start to the Trump Administration. The President — a term I use loosely — has been in office for about six months, and the big promises he started with have yet to come to fruition. He’s played more golf than Jordan Spieth, and you and I have signed the same amount of major legislations as him. Those in the Republican party have become more and more fed up as time has passed.
On July 26, 2017, Donald Trump took to Twitter, as he usually does, to have his voice heard. He proceeded to ban transgender individuals from serving in the armed forces. An asinine proposal.
“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. 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. Thank you.”
On multiple levels, this is wrong. I don’t know where to start, and I hope I hit them all. The funniest part about this is that Spencer Ackerman, a reporter for the Daily Beast, said that the Senate Armed Services Committee “was taken by surprise by the trans service reversal.” No shit, any moral human being was. Then, we unearthed a tweet from Trump that he sent out last June where he thanked the LGBT community. He claimed that he would “fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.”
Life comes at you fast. Now, we have someone who dodged the draft being pretty fucking (pardon my French) audacious be determining who is allowed to serve the country that he “runs.”
I want to disclose the fact that I’m not a political person. I write about sports. If I come off emotional, it’s because I am. This act transcends politics. I have gay friends, and I know people who struggle with gender identification. From what I gauge, and take it with a grain of salt if you want to, Trump is instituting this ban because Barack Obama was the one who allowed transgender military service. A lot of Trump’s motives are rooted in overturning what the Democrats have done because he’s spiteful. Children are also spiteful. Donald Trump is 71-years-old.
Putting your life on the line demands nothing but respect and admiration. I don’t care if you’re black, white, yellow, gay or whatever, your service is appreciated even if the “Commander-in-Chief” doesn’t see it that way. What’s also respectable is someone going through a sex change. They want to be happy. Living your life as a boy when you believe you’re supposed to be a girl (and vice versa) is emotionally, mentally and physically draining, and undergoing an operation to reverse that is overwhelming. Having to face the world like that is even tougher. A lot of people aren’t comfortable with the “T” part of “LGBTQ,” and it’s even more challenging living in the information age. You’re subject to joke after joke just because of someone’s ignorance.
Of course, some people agree with this policy. Why? Because they’re Trump supporters. I don’t want to generalize because I’ve come across two groups of them and have seen it from people close to me and afar. There are the those who voted for him and didn’t think it would be this bad, so now they’re reluctant to say they did because of how hard the shit has hit the fan. The other’s are just ignorant. The latter will hoop and holler about this because it’s “making America great again!” and the only reason they’re able to come to that conclusion is the “President” saying so.
They’re easily identifiable. On Twitter, they typically don’t have themselves are their avatar, and the name they display is something Trump-related. They swarm your mentions like flies and trying to argue with them is futile. You’ll say something they don’t agree with and will ask you for evidence. You oblige and show them. They deny it and blame it on the “fake news media.” It’s like trying to talk to a dog wearing ear muffs.
Donald Trump hasn’t explicitly said that banning transgender people from the military would make America great again, but it’s his fucking slogan. I’m sure he believes it. In some way, this meets his agenda, which falls somewhere between being stupid and having no morals.
Calling transgender service people a burden is a joke. This administration is more of a burden than you are. And there is evidence on the military’s spending to back it up, courtesy of The Washington Post who got an analysis from Military Times:
$41.6 million spent on Viagra
$22.8 million spent on Cialis
$8.4 million max estimated spent on transgender medical care
Trump supporters won’t believe it, but oh well. Ignorance is bliss.
We’re behind the LGBTQ community. You have the right to put yourself on the line for our country — for that matter, you have the right to do whatever you want.
For any transgender person who needs someone to talk to can reach out to The National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 800–273-TALK (8255). Additionally, there’s the Trans Lifeline (877–565–8860), and The Trevor Project’s 24/7 Lifeline (866–488–7386). GLAAD has also put together a list of resources that you can find here.
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