President-elect Donald Trump’s staff refuted anonymously sourced stories claiming that he would instantly discharge all transgender-identifying individuals from the navy upon taking workplace.
Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, who was tapped by the president-elect to be his press secretary, stated in an announcement to The Epoch Instances on Nov. 30 that such claims by a number of media retailers are primarily based on hypothesis.
“These unnamed sources are speculating and have no idea what they are actually talking about,” Leavitt stated. “No policy should ever be deemed official unless it comes directly from President Trump or his authorized spokespeople.”
The alleged proposed plan was first reported by The Instances of London, citing “defense sources” and a “source familiar with Trump’s plans,” final week and would entail Trump’s signing an order to medically discharge transgender-identifying troops from the navy. The transfer, it claimed, would drive some 15,000 people from the armed forces.
The report didn’t checklist any named sources and didn’t point out whether or not any of the people labored on the Trump transition staff.
In response to The Instances of London report, the top of the pro-LGBT Human Rights Marketing campaign alleged that such a ban would “make our country less safe” and is “nothing more than transphobia.”
“Our military must be able to recruit the best candidates, retain the highly trained service members who have already sacrificed so much for their country, and every qualified patriot should be able to serve openly, free of discrimination,” Kelley Robinson, Human Rights Marketing campaign president, stated in a assertion final week amid the stories.
In 2017, throughout his first time period in workplace, Trump introduced that the navy would now not permit transgender-identifying individuals to serve in “any capacity,” coming after the Obama administration allowed such individuals to serve within the navy and obtain taxpayer-funded medical therapies associated to figuring out as transgender.
“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,” Trump wrote on social media in July 2017.
The coverage was revised in 2018 and solely blocked individuals from serving within the navy who had a historical past of gender dysphoria who have been unable or unwilling to function their organic intercourse or had undergone medical transition therapy. In 2019, the Supreme Court docket dominated 5–4 that the 2018 model of the ban may stay intact, however the ban was later reversed by President Joe Biden.
Simply days after taking workplace in early 2021, Biden signed an govt order that overturned the primary Trump administration order.
On the time, Biden stated that the U.S. navy is “stronger” world wide and at residence “when it is inclusive,” in accordance to an announcement. Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin had additionally indicated that he backed Biden’s choice.
In mid-2016, President Barack Obama ended a longstanding ban on transgender-identifying individuals within the navy, with Protection Secretary Ash Carter on the time saying in a information convention that the navy has to “have access to 100 percent of America’s population.”
Other than military-related insurance policies, Trump has backed a ban on transgender medical therapies for minors.
On his marketing campaign web site, the president-elect stated he would take away hospitals and well being care suppliers that take part within the “chemical or physical mutilation of minor youth” from Medicaid and Medicare packages.
In the meantime, Trump has proposed barring transgender-identifying athletes from competing in ladies’s sports activities. In a city corridor occasion in September, Trump stated that if elected, his administration would cease the coverage as a result of “it’s a man playing” in a ladies’s recreation.
“Look at what’s happened in swimming. Look at the records that are being broken,” he stated.
In an Related Press survey of greater than 120,000 individuals who solid ballots over the last election, greater than half of voters said that help for transgender rights in authorities and society has gone too far. Amongst Trump voters, 85 p.c stated such help had gone too far.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
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