Trump’s agenda of hate continues with the Supreme Court’s shocking upholding of his ban on trans people in the military
Today’s news that the Republican, Catholic-dominated Supreme Court allowed Trump’s transgender military ban to go into effect has had a shattering effect on the LGBTQ community.
The online news site, LGBTQ Nation, published an article justly comparing the ban to Hitler’s anti-semitic campaign in Germany in the 1930s, which was designed “to frighten and turn the so-called ‘Aryan’ German population even further against their Jewish neighbors.”
In their brief to the Supreme Court to allow the ban to go forward, the Trump regime put forward the absurd claim that America’s “national security [and] national defense” were at risk, if transgendered people were allowed to serve.
Trump’s Solicitor General, Noel Francisco (remember that name) told the Court that “It is with great reluctance” that the regime sought “such emergency relief in this court.” But if there was really any regret, it was hard to discern; instead, there was generalized glee on the Right that yet more insults and hardship had been thrown at a segment of the population loathed by Trump Republicans.
At the rightwing online site, Breitbart, where they never miss an opportunity to hate, readers were dancing in the aisles. “They are mentally ill,” one person wrote of transgendered folks. Said another, “Remember when all of those transgenders stormed Normandy beach? They had to endure broken high heels, stop to reapply makeup, and sew tears in their dresses while dodging German fire.” And another: “I honor any Man or Woman for defending our country. But you first have to be one or the other because there are only two sexes.” And another: “If you cannot figure out your sexuality. You cannot figure out your enemies.” And another: “Eradicate lefties from this earth. Sick in the head, cannot be rehabilitated.”
I apologize for exposing you to this raw sewage. But it’s important to know the nature of the enemy, if you wish to defeat him.
Look, I can understand the attitude on the part of some military professionals who say that bringing trans people into barracks would be disruptive to some soldiers. I can also understand the Pentagon’s reluctance to possibly have to foot the medical and psychological bills for trans soldiers. The “disruptive to morale” argument, however, falls apart when you consider that the military claimed the same thing on two prior occasions: when Truman desegregated the military, and later when gays were allowed to serve. In both those cases, the naysayers were proven to be utterly wrong; and in fact, our military was made infinitely stronger by including Black people and gay people.
As for the “medical and psychological bills” part, yes, that is a problem. Conversion therapy can be enormously expensive. But would the Pentagon have to foot the bill? I don’t see why the Congress could not pass, and the president sign, a law limiting the amount that would have to be spent. The lesson of prisons is applicable. Wisconsin, for example, passed a law, so far unchallenged, that prohibits prisons from paying the medical costs for gender dysphoria.
Besides, most imprisoned transgendered people’s medical expenses are paid for by Medicare; and private health insurance in many cases also pays for gender dysphoria treatment. So there are approaches that could be taken that would not require the Pentagon to pay for these very costly services.
In the end, there’s no rational basis for the Trump regime’s war on trans people, except for the dreary, predictable rage on the Right, upon which Trump depends to keep his base supportive. They require their daily dose of raw meat; trans people are cheap, easy raw meat for this vile president to throw to the “Christians” who manage to find, in their Bibles, justification for whatever bigotry they feel like committing.
I hope that someday we can have an honest conversation in this country about religious conservatives. These people are not friends of democracy. They do not love America, in the sense in which America is the final bastion of freedom for the world’s despised peoples. Nor do these people—the evangelicals, Pentecostals, Mormons and extreme Catholics—even wish to live in a Constitutional democracy. Not for them the free, unfettered vote of a free people! No, they yearn for what the Taliban hopes to achieve in Afghanistan: rule by the mullahs, the law according to Shariah, stolid, solemn obedience to medieval vengeance inflicted by insane clerics.
The good news, insofar as there is any for trans people and those of us who sympathize with them, is that there remain several lower court cases challenging the trans ban—which, by the way, Obama ended, only to have Trump resurrect it. The ban thus may eventually be entirely overturned. But considering the rightward lurch the Supreme Court has taken—a pathology that may be exacerbated if something happens to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, God forbid—it’s likely that the Catholics on the High Court will ultimately prevent trans people from serving their country. The friends of democracy, liberty and freedom can take comfort only in the certainty that History ultimately will condemn the haters—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts—just as History has condemned the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sanford decision, which ruled that African-Americans could not be considered American citizens. We can only hope that some of the Hateful Five are still alive when this verdict is finalized, so that they can appreciate how thoroughly they have been repudiated.
