The Pitters' Place

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... e-to-serve

"The president's expressed concern since this Obama policy came into effect, but he's also voiced that this is a very expensive and disruptive policy and, based on consultation that he's had with his national security team, came to the conclusion that it erodes military readiness and unit cohesion, and made the decision based on that."

... [Trump] tweeted: “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."

but lol hypocrisy:
"The Pentagon spent $84 million on erectile disfunction medications in 2014, 10 times the estimated annual medical costs for transgender services."
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... 0.facebook

Apparently some say it's an intentional distraction so that Democrats will be forced to make a stand on this issue and alienate voters who'll then vote Republican: https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/statu ... 3721863168

On one hand it's the military and the fewer people sign up the better, but encouraging an army whose idea of unit cohesion = 'no minorities that make people uncomfortable' is going to decrease empathy, reduce understanding of people who are different and further rampant machoism, and seems like a very bad idea all around. Plus they've just given implicit support to harass trans people currently serving, not to mention spitting on the graves of all the trans soldiers who've given their lives.


EDIT: ok the internet is full of transphobia today. going off.

Mixed feelings. On the one hand, obvious transphobia. On the other hand, fuck the military and anyone who thinks it's a good idea to join it.

I like @Contrapoints' twitter take on it:

"Dear comrades, the outrage over the transgender ban is not about support for U.S. imperialism. This ban isn't really abt the military. It's about signaling that transgender people are burdensome and not worth supporting. Trump is doing this not to make the military more efficient but to get a populist bigotry boost as his reputation is falling apart."

https://twitter.com/ContraPoints/status ... 0573442049

Many people also sign up out of a genuine desire to protect the people they love, and I don't want to hold them responsible for the atrocities that they may end up participating in.

EDIT: though my perspective on the military is largely informed by coming from a tiny country where our army's primary purpose is self defense and occasional humanitarian work.