Transmissions: Honor, truth, and discipline

In 2017 – during the first year of Republican President Donald Trump's first term in office – he moved to ban transgender people from service in the military. This was done to retaliate against Trump's predecessor, former President Barack Obama, who moved to allow trans service members late in his second term.

The order was initially announced via Twitter, claiming that the "tremendous medical costs and disruption" of allowing transgender people to serve openly was the reason for this change. Trans people already serving were allowed to continue, while no new trans recruits were allowed.

This policy was, of course, challenged, and largely fell apart within the chaos of that first Trump administration. President Joe Biden repealed the ban shortly after taking office in January 2021. Transgender people have served honorably since then.

Until now.

Days after starting his second term in January, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders. Among those was one titled, "Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness." This rescinded Biden's rescinding of Trump's previous order.

Unlike the earlier claims of "cost and disruption," this new order was dripping with animus. I will quote the most important paragraph of an otherwise abhorrent order.

"Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false 'gender identity' divergent from an individual's sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual's sex conflicts with a soldier's commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man's assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member. "

I should note that the language in this is very specific to trans women, while it claims that transgender people are inherently dishonorable and undisciplined. I want you to understand something very clearly about this language. While this is an order specific to members of the military, this is claiming that all transgender people are equally dishonest. This is important.

Of course, Trump's order this year has been challenged in federal court, just like the one in 2017. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth – known largely for his history of heavy drinking, his suspicious tattoos, and his involvement in the Signalgate controversy whereby he discussed military operations on an unsecure Signal group chat – moved to apply Trump's order, only to see it blocked by federal judges. For this, the Justice Department pressed the U.S. Supreme Court to step in.

In an unsigned order May 6, the justices paused the national injunction that had been in place, letting the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rule on the administration’s appeal, and before the high court decides if it wishes to hear the case. In the meantime, Trump’s ban can go into effect.

While the three most liberal Supreme Court justices indicated they were in dissent, we do not know how the other six voted. We can pretty safely presume, however, that the conservative justices decided in Trump’s favor.

What this means is that the Department of Defense is now free to remove all transgender people from the military, and it is not wasting time. As many as 1,000 service members are being moved out as you read this, with thousands of others being given 30 days to self-identify and, presumably, be removed as well.

Ultimately, this means that it won't matter much what the 9th Circuit determines, let alone what the Supreme Court may or may not say after that. The damage will already be done, and it will be very hard to undo. I'd argue that was the point of this order by the Supreme Court.

A lot of well-trained military troops will be gone. Each one of them served with honor, with honesty, and with discipline.

I’d argue that they possess far more of each than any single person in the current administration.

I would also suspect that they have served with more honor than any soldier who took part in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, or the torture and abuse committed in the Abu Ghraib Prison during the Iraq War.

This is about much more than just the military, of course: if one can determine that transgender people are being dishonest by merely serving their country in the military, one can decide that transgender people are being dishonest in all other elements of their life.

We've all seen plenty of arguments over the last few years that have hinged on arguments that transgender people are deceitful. Recall every time you have heard about male-bodied people supposedly deciding one day they were women in order to somehow dominate women's sports. Or, of course, the old canard about men disguising themselves as women to get into the women's restroom.

If you can declare that transgender people – by simply existing – are dishonest, then you can instantly bar them from anything that is separated by gender.

It goes far, far deeper than this. If we are inherently so deceitful, to the point where our service is inconsistent "with the humility and selflessness required of a service member," then perhaps one could argue that we also should not have the right to be employed while also being trans. Extrapolating further, it could be argued that we should not have the right to exist publicly at all.

You see, the military ban was never a final step, but a first one. If we – again, simply by existing as trans people – cannot serve our country, it's not a far cry from claiming that our existence is not compatible with being an American at all.

That statement, alone, can open a Pandora's box of atrocities. It's an attack on us all, and one that should never stand.
 
Gwen Smith does not sleep well at night, why do you ask? You can find her on the web at www.gwensmith.com