The Online Newspaper of Lakewood High School

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    Trump’s Trangender Military Ban Passes in SCOTUS

    Trumps+Trangender+Military+Ban+Passes+in+SCOTUS

    In July 2017, Trump released a tweet saying that transgender individuals would not be allowed to serve openly in the military. That it excluded them from services based on the economic burden of covering their surgeries due to their service entitling them to medical care. It was blocked with injunctions.

    Trump attempted again March, citing that it harmed the effectiveness of the military and undermine regulation about mental state and genitalia abnormality/mutilation that disqualifies one form enlisting. These new principles were suggested by his Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis. It was again, blocked.

    But this month, the Supreme Court has allowed the ban to go through. Now it is estimated that there are about 2,000-11,000 transgender Armed Forces members. Rather small in the context of a force of 1.3 million members. Yet that would suggest their impact would be minimal. In fact, there’s a published study that proves it. One disregarded by Mattis in his assistance of Trump in allowing this ban.

    he ban passed with a 5-4, not surprising in the conservative court we find ourselves under. With justices Gorsuch, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Alito as the majority, and the dissenting being Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Breyer. There has been no released reasoning to the court allowing this ban to advance after lower courts felt it was likely unconstitutional.

     

    Of course, medical reasons for denying applicants is reasonable. But the idea of sex-based limitations calls to question–is sexual reassignment surgery a “missing of (a certain body part).” Examples being the testes and a uterus.

    That one is questionable in any basis really, but the mental health reason is shady. Gender dysphoria is a mental illness in the idea of that your mental faculties recognize that aspects of your body do not match your gender identity. The depression and anxiety having ones body not match their mind causes. However, disqualifying mental illnesses for service have to be those of “any symptoms of mood and mental issues that affect social ability, school, and learning, or work efficiency are disqualifying.” They disqualify mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. And a history of suicidal tendencies.

    Transgender people can have those issues, but transgenderism itself is not those illnesses. The idea of a sacrificed state of mind is subjective, thinking that one could have a social ineptitude due to their gender presentation/identity differing from that of their birth sex.

    With its lack of explanation and its treading on a previous administration’s reform makes the ban further scrutinized past the fact it is outwardly discriminatory.

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