Medical community slams Trump's bigoted military ban
The American Medical Association says there is ‘no medically valid reason’ for Trump’s transgender military ban.
Trump wants to inject anti-trans bigotry into the U.S. military, and the medical community is blasting him for mischaracterizing and misusing medical science to justify discrimination.
“The AMA has said repeatedly that there is no medically valid reason — including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria — to exclude transgender individuals from military service,” Dr. Barbara L. McAneny, president of the American Medical Association (AMA), told the Associated Press on Thursday.
Yet on Friday, Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military goes into effect. Starting then, transgender troops who refuse to serve in their birth sex and are “given an opportunity to correct those deficiencies,” are to be kicked out by military leaders. The policy also falsely claims the need to transition to another gender in the same category as individuals with congenital or developmental defects.
The AMA is unhappy with how the Trump administration describes transgender individuals. The mischaracterization of medical language to provide a cover for bigotry struck a nerve with the medical community, who rejected the reasoning from the Trump administration.
“The only thing deficient is any medical science behind this decision,” McAneny said.
In June 2016, President Obama announced the end to a military ban for transgender individuals. In the intervening years, more than 14,000 transgender troops have served openly in the military. In 2018 congressional testimony, military officials testified that the found no issues with transgender troops serving in the military.
Opposition to the bigoted military ban comes from more than just the medical community.
In 2018, Trump’s own Secretary of Defense and other top officials opposed a transgender military ban. Earlier in 2019, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a resolution supporting transgender troops and discouraging the Trump administration from instituting the ban.
Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) blasted the idea of a transgender military ban in January of this year.
“When I was bleeding to death in my Black Hawk helicopter on that dusty field in Iraq, I didn’t care if the American troops risking their lives to help save me were gay, straight, transgender, black, white, male or female,” Duckworth said in a statement. “All that mattered was they didn’t leave me behind.”
Trump ignores opposition from Congress, his own advisers, and the medical community, choosing to wholeheartedly embrace bigotry.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
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