Trump administration tells Congress that being transgender is like having a disease
While the Michael Cohen hearing was stealing the spotlight Wednesday, the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel held its own hearing on President Donald Trump’s transgender military ban. After stirring testimony from a panel of five out trans service members, two representatives from the administration then attempted to defend the ban — and ended up doing so by comparing being transgender to having a disease.
James N. Stewart, who is currently performing the duties of Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, rehashed the administration’s familiar arguments. Repeatedly, he insisted that the policy is not a “ban,” nor does it target “transgender” people. Instead, he claimed that it only impacts people who present with the condition of gender dysphoria, and was thus not discriminatory. Vice Admiral Raquel Bono, Director of the Defense Health Agency, was also on hand to testify that there were medical justifications for not allowing people with gender dysphoria to serve.
With the exception of Rep. Trent Kelly (R-MS), who appeared sympathetic to allowing transgender people to serve, only Democratic members of the committee asked questions, and they all attempted to chip away at Stewart and Bono’s claims. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), who chairs the subcommittee, said she was “astonished” by their arguments, and Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA) noted that it costs three times as much to train a single pilot as it does to provide a year’s worth of transition-related medical services across the entire military.
Many of the members pointed out that every major medical organization has rejected the ban, leaving Bono to claim that the military has its own data to justify it. But she could not in any way explain how they determined, for example, that starting hormone replacement therapy would result in 12 months of non-deployability, insisting the science was still shifting.
https://thinkprogress.org/trans-military-ban-white-house-disease-6f9c2b7560b0/?fbclid=IwAR2q4S4d-ohUXMUTw0owpE0eTeOCKVM2BKH8GBBeB7bjIxU01OYPM5BtqK0
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