August 28, 2017

Military Professors Analyze Trump’s Transgender Ban

New Policy Mandates Discrimination and Creates Dangerous Climate of Uncertainty

San Francisco, CA — A group of current and former military professors have released a Palm Center policy memo explaining President Trump’s transgender ban and clarifying misconceptions about the new policy.

According to Palm Center director Aaron Belkin, “The military professors show that President Trump’s ban subjects transgender Americans to humiliating, unequal treatment, and contradicts the post-Charlottesville claims of the Joint Chiefs, who said that intolerance cuts ‘against our values.'”

The military professors outline six different forms of mandatory discrimination against transgender service members required by President Trump’s ban, with only limited discretion given to the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to provisionally retain them on a case-by-case basis.

Even i​f some transgender service members are granted continuation of service despite the ban, they will serve under standards that apply only to them, in a system in which there is a presumption that they are unfit for duty, and with no assurance that their permission to remain will endure.

“Such a climate creates levels of uncertainty that will only be disruptive and corroding to military readiness,” said Belkin.

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