The military veteran reflects on the Trump Administration’s recent decisions around transgender troops.
As a U.S. Army veteran, I could never have imagined the politicization of the military that is happening today before the rise of Donald Trump.
And I especially could not have imagined the malicious targeting of marginalized troops by their own government – specifically the transgender service member community. Not only is the Trump administration banning transgender people from joining the military, but they are also kicking out those who are currently serving. For those in the U.S. Air Force, if they have served between 15-18 years, transgender members are now not allowed to receive early retirement to receive the benefits that they have rightfully earned.
This is unnecessary and cruel. People who have given almost two decades of their lives in service to this nation are being thrown out like a piece of trash.
It is one of the most disgusting and anti-American displays of cowardice that I have ever seen in my lifetime.
Donald Trump is a coward. He ran away from service in Vietnam with five draft deferments, and now his administration is telling people who actually had the courage to serve their country during a time of war that their service is not worthy — and that it is no longer needed or respected.
Even worse, it is breaking the promise our government makes to people when they commit to serve this country. I can only describe this decision as cowardly, bigoted, and evil. In the age of Trump, no Republicans dare cross him. But in Trump’s first term when the late great John McCain, a well-known Christian Conservative, still served in the U.S. Senate, he said, “There is no reason to force service members who are able to fight, train, and deploy, to leave the military – regardless of their gender identity.”
I am often asked what I remember most fondly about my time in the military. For me, the answer is easy — it is the diverse group of people that I had the privilege and the opportunity to serve with. If I had never joined the military, I would never have met so many great people from every corner of the country and the world. I served with people from the mountains of West Virginia and the inner city of Detroit. I served with immigrants from Africa, South America, and Asia. I served with people of Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist faiths – and some with no faith at all.
I served with straight, gay, and yes, even transgender service members. This was not an issue back when I served for front-line troops.
The beauty was that when we joined the Army, we were all welcomed into the same family – we all became Army green and bled the same red blood. We had the back of anyone who served with honor and dignity and worked their hardest to become experts at their craft. We didn’t let political ideologies and personal identities get in the way of training and completing the mission.
The US military is an all-volunteer force,and unless you want to bring back the draft, we should never be in the business of kicking out and banning people who are serving honorably.
Advocacy groups estimate that there are around 15,000 transgender service members in the military. The overwhelming majority are professionals who just want to serve their country, go to work, and do their job every single day. They have done nothing wrong, and there is no evidence that having transgender service members in a unit lowers that unit’s performance or ruins unit cohesion or morale.
I guess I was lucky because I got to serve in the brief moment after “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed and before the bigotry of the Trump administration. I felt great pride in my country and in my military. Now it is hard to feel anything other than shame. But that does not mean we give up the fight. We will continue to fight for what is right – for equality and justice for all – because that is the America I fought for, and that is the America I want to pass on to my kids and the next generation.
Scott Peoples served as a captain in the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division from 2009-2014 during the global fight against terrorism. He now advocates for free and fair elections and responsible leadership across North Carolina. Follow him on X. This column is syndicated by Beacon Media and is available to republish for free on all platforms under Beacon Media’s guidelines.
