Transgender Service Members vs. Trump

It’s an unfortunate move by Trump. I think there are legitimate differences between sexual orientation-based discrimination and transgender discrimination when the issue is sharing intimate space (barracks, locker rooms) with those who are still—and may plan to remain—physically one sex while living as the other. But blanket prohibitions aren’t the way to handle these issues.

That said, the organized LGBT movement declared a blistering war against Trump from day one, even though on sexual orientation he was the most supportive GOP presidential nominee ever. What if they had worked to persuade him instead of unleashing their unceasing torrent of hate? We may never know.

More. Yes, the candidate who said this during his convention speech accepting the GOP nomination was reachable:

As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” [applause] “I must say as a Republican it is so nice to hear you cheering. Thank you.”

But with the LGBT activist community and LGBT media implacably opposed to him, it’s not so surprising that he would instead seek to curry favor with social conservatives.

Effective political advocates lobby both parties and hire lobbyist from both parties to do so. But the Human Rights Campaign and virtually all other LGBT groups (except the explicitly party-affiliated Log Cabin Republicans), although their mission statements aren’t officially partisan, long ago decided to be partisan Democrats first.

Another view: Trump’s military transgender ban is unfair but correct.

I think it would have been wise if all sides could make a distinction between fully transitioned, post-op transgender men and woman, who should be legally treated as members of the sex to which they’ve transitioned, and transgender people who are in the process of transitioning or (as noted above) have decided not to physically transition but to present themselves as the other sex. I could see the military making this distinction by accepting the former but not the latter.

18 Comments for “Transgender Service Members vs. Trump”

  1. posted by tj 3 on

    Quite a few Republicans HAVE tried to work with the Trump administration on this issue.

    Expecting people – with a strong major party ID – to suddenly change their party ID, is silly. it rarely happens.

    Stephen wants Democrats to stop being Democrats, but gets outraged that Republicans don’t get invited to a gay pride parade or get socially disowned by a Village Voice columnist?

    People very rarely change their major party ID.

    What the Trump administration does, aint driven by what gay or straight Democrats do. suggesting otherwise is silly.

  2. posted by Jorge on

    That said, the organized LGBT movement declared a blistering war against Trump from day one, even though on sexual orientation he was the most supportive GOP presidential nominee ever. What if they had worked to persuade him instead of unleashing their unceasing torrent of hate? We may never know.

    Before President Trump’s shameful attack on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, I might have called you naive. And as a solid Trump supporter and a Republican, not to mention someone who has no shame cannibalizing the T, I will go apologist on the president and will knock the LGBT March on Trump.

    The executive order is an outrage.

  3. posted by Lori Heine on

    Social conservatism is a scourge. Those people are–temperamentally and tactically–no different from leftists. They’re cry-bullies who are addicted to outrage. They live in a cramped, identity-politics bubble.

    It’s utterly hilarious to hear “progressives” decry social conservatives. The two groups are two peas in a pod. Pathetic, ignorant twats, the lot of them.

    May they all rot together in the same hell.

  4. posted by Kosh III on

    The assault on civil rights continues
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/justice-gay-civil-rights-act_us_5979422de4b02a4ebb72e45d?dd&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

    ——————————————-
    “most supportive GOP presidential nominee ever”
    Yeah, he just wants to ship us off in boxcars as opposed to others who want to ship us off and execute us.

  5. posted by Jorge on

    Yes, the candidate who said this during his convention speech accepting the GOP nomination was reachable:

    As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” [applause] “I must say as a Republican it is so nice to hear you cheering. Thank you.”

    But with the LGBT activist community and LGBT media implacably opposed to him, it’s not so surprising that he would instead seek to curry favor with social conservatives.

    There real reason President Trump wants to curry favor with social conservatives at this moment in history is because he is feeling the heat on Jeff Sessions. He has obviously not learned his lesson.

    It does occur to me that among several choices (act to allow transgender people to serve, allow them to serve with restrictions, full ban), the results of the first two would be for the LGBT community to declare him an enemy for life and the last is for us to declare undying hatred of him. Given that it can certainly seem to make a certain amount of political sense to favor a complete bloodbath over a messy compromise. This doesn’t explain why he even bothered to get into this at all.

    At least President Bush had the guts to look the country in the eye, say his decision, and say what he wanted out of it.

    The assault on civil rights continues

    The position that the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation has for many years been a non-starter. That is why the Employment Non-Discrimination Act keeps getting proposed in Congress. I am aware of only a recent line of judicial decisions that says it is prohibited as part of discrimination on the basis of gender.

    It is a reasonable argument, but one that is a major stretch. The policy of the Trump administration is to appoint conservative Justices to the Supreme Court so that narrow interpretations of the Constitution and the laws of the land will prevail. That is the correct position for the Trump administration to take on the Supreme Court, and the correct position for the Trump administration to argue in court for sitting judges to take. The fact that it is GAY NEWS is only a collateral result of Congress, representatives of the people of the United States, looking at ENDA year after year and saying No.

  6. posted by JohnInCA on

    … is this another “he’s not personally homophobic, just politically homophobic” argument? How many Republican presidents are you guys going to try this argument with before you realize it doesn’t matter?

    • posted by JohnInCA on

      As a side note, I’d like to point out that this is also another attempt to blame Democrats for what Republicans do. No personal responsibility to be seen.

  7. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    em>[T]he organized LGBT movement declared a blistering war against Trump from day one, even though on sexual orientation he was the most supportive GOP presidential nominee ever.

    What if they had worked to persuade him instead of unleashing their unceasing torrent of hate? We may never know.

    Yes, the candidate who said this during his convention speech accepting the GOP nomination was reachable:

    “As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” [applause] “I must say as a Republican it is so nice to hear you cheering. Thank you.”

    But with the LGBT activist community and LGBT media implacably opposed to him, it’s not so surprising that he would instead seek to curry favor with social conservatives.

    Nominee Trump was, without question, “the most supportive GOP presidential nominee ever”. Unlike Nominee Bush II, Nominee McCain and Nominee Romney, Nominee Trump did not support a federal anti-marriage amendment, and remained silent (I think) on conversion therapy. That may have been a small step for mankind, but it was a huge step for a Republican party presidential nominee.

    In fact, Nominee Trump may well be the most supportive Republican politican ever, since, as Stephen points out, he went before the Republican 2016 Convention and pledged to “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology”. To my knowledge, no other Republican politician before Nominee Trump uttered such bold and unprecedented words, except, perhaps in private.

    But Nominee Trump’s undaunted courage as “the most supportive GOP presidential nominee ever” isn’t what led “the organized LGBT movement” to oppose Nominee Trump or President Trump.

    What led them to oppose Nominee Trump in the election, and to remain critical of President Trump thereafter, were his positions and actions as nominee and as President vis a vis gays and lesbians.

    A brief reminder of a few of the highlights: Nominee Trump, with one or two minor exceptions, took positions identical to the 2016 Platform on LGBT issues, denounced by LCR as the worst (in terms of “gay supportive”) in the party’s history. Nominee Trump selected Governor Pence, deservedly or not the poster boy for government-sanctioned special discrimination movement among social conservatives, as his running mate. President-Elect Trump nominated a solidly anti-equality Cabinet, epitomized by Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, a fierce and longstanding opponent of equal treatment for gays and lesbians under the law, as Attorney General. President Trump charged Attorney General Sessions with developing guidelines/mandates for all federal agencies to implement policies supporting the freedom of conservative Christians to discriminate against gays and lesbians in employment, housing, services and other areas regulated by the Federal government. President Trump farmed out judicial nominations, for all practical intents and purposes, to the fiercely anti-equality Heritage Society, and we are beginning to see the fruits of that decision. President Trump nominated Justice Gorsuch (considered by Court scholars to be to the right of Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, former Justice Scalia, and (possibly) Justice Thomas), who wrote a dissent in a recent case that excoriated gay and lesbian claims to equal treatment under the law, and lower court judges such as Judge John Bush, recently confirmed by a party-line vote, along with a solidly anti-equality (and in many cases solidly anti-gay) lineup of lower-court nominees. The Trump administration filed a brief last week arguing that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not apply to gays and lesbians. President Trump has now thrown transgender military personnel under the bus for no apparent reason**. An so on.

    I don’t know what would have happened if “the organized LGBT movement” had followed LCR’s lead and slavishly fawned all over Nominee Trump during the campaign, and President Trump after the election. LCR’s fawning didn’t accomplish much of anything, despite LCR’s self-puffing about its contacts with and influence in the Trump administration. Would it have made a difference if left/liberal gays and lesbians had joined the homocon chorus, praising President Trump to the ends of the earth? I don’t know, but I doubt it.

    It does seem a stretch, though, to suggest/assert, as Stephen seems to do, that President Trump was driven to the bosom of social conservatives because “the LGBT activist community and LGBT media” opposed him. His actions, past and present, don’t align with that explanation.

    Although President Trump has demonstrated a childish vindictive streak over and over again, my guess is that the President’s character defects had less to do with the transgender twit-storm than a need to divert attention away from his efforts to drive out Attorney General Sessions, and a need to toss some red meat to the base to shore up support in light of intense conservative criticism of his recent actions.

    =========

    I note that JCS Chairman Dunford issued a statement this morning that might well lead to a twit-storm tonight or tomorrow: ““There will be no modifications to the current policy until the President’s direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidance. In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect. As importantly, given the current fight and the challenges we face, we will all remain focused on accomplishing our assigned missions.” My guess is that General Dunford will be gone by Halloween.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      Regarding the comment immediately above, I should make clear that this language is Stephen’s:

      [T]he organized LGBT movement declared a blistering war against Trump from day one, even though on sexual orientation he was the most supportive GOP presidential nominee ever.

      What if they had worked to persuade him instead of unleashing their unceasing torrent of hate? We may never know.

      Yes, the candidate who said this during his convention speech accepting the GOP nomination was reachable:

      “As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” [applause] “I must say as a Republican it is so nice to hear you cheering. Thank you.”

      But with the LGBT activist community and LGBT media implacably opposed to him, it’s not so surprising that he would instead seek to curry favor with social conservatives.

      The balance of the comment — commentary on Stephen’s views — is mine.

  8. posted by Jorge on

    I think it would have been wise if all sides could make a distinction between fully transitioned, post-op transgender men and woman, who should be legally treated as members of the sex to which they’ve transitioned, and transgender people who are in the process of transitioning or (as noted above) have decided not to physically transition but to live as the other sex.

    I agree. However, no less than the President of the United States failed to do so.

    I am also concerned about a fourth category: those individuals have gender dysphora and are living 100% as the gender of their assigned sex–the Bruce Jenners of the military. Aren’t they technically under attack, too?

  9. posted by Dale of the Desert on

    “I think there are legitimate differences between sexual orientation-based discrimination and transgender discrimination when the issue is sharing intimate space (barracks, locker rooms)”

    Well, yes, of course. Common sense says that transgendered males in a male barracks would be less likely to care about some barracks-mate’s dick than would a gay male. And God knows gay males don’t give a damn about some tough, macho, but sensitive, straight male’s microdick.

    I haven’t been around this site for a long, long time, but the news from those horrible lying mainstream media people has been so depressing lately that I felt in need of some of Stephen Miller’s subtle humor of the absurd. Glad to see he hasn’t lost his touch.

  10. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Transgender Service Members vs. Trump

    A quiet note: The headline has it exactly backwards. Transgender military personnel did not take the fight to President Trump. President Trump took the fight to them.

    Why he did so, and at this time, we do not know.

    I wonder, though, if the President might have acted more soberly had he served at some point in his life.

  11. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Blame The Aggressive LGBT Playbook For Trump’s Transgender Ban

    It seems that homocons are united in their opinion that mainstream LGBT groups, by continuing to fight for equality even after the election ushered in a landslide victory for The Greatest President On Earth, are responsible for the fact that the The Greatest President On Earth has turned out to have feet of clay.

    Whatever happened to the glory days, just a few months back, when homocons were crowing about the fact that mainstream LGBT groups counted for naught and LCR, Milo and the rest of the homocons were going to usher in a new era of Republican sweetness and light?

    Gone, gone, gone. Having fallen on their collective ass yet again, homocons are reduced to whining that left/liberal/progressive gays and lesbians are responsible for the Republican Party continuing to bottom for social conservatives.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.

  12. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Another view: Trump’s military transgender ban is unfair but correct.

    We don’t know if it is correct or not, because the President’s precipitous action was taken before the facts are known. As Senator McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, points out: “The Department of Defense is currently conducting a study on the medical obligations it would incur, the impact on military readiness, and related questions associated with the accession of transgender individuals who are not currently serving in uniform and wish to join the military. I do not believe that any new policy decision is appropriate until that study is complete and thoroughly reviewed by the Secretary of Defense, our military leadership, and the Congress.”

    The President does not appear to have consulted with anyone responsible for the military before issuing the transgender twit-storm. The Secretary of Defense was caught flatfooted, and is reported to be “appalled” by the twit-storm. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were blindsided and quickly issued a “keep your powder dry — nothing has changed and won’t until the adults in the room can do this properly” statement to the military. The responsible committees in Congress were not notified that the President was about to issue the twit-storm. No preparation was done in the White House, apparently, because no Executive Order was issued and White House spokesmen were left, as is usual following the President’s ill-tempered late-night twit-storms about this, that or the other, scrambling to come up with some sort of plausible explanation** for the President’s actions.

    The transgender twit-storm, in short, was pure Trump, an action taken without consultation, planning or preparation, well ahead of the facts, for reasons unknown. That’s bad enough, given the consequences of tinkering with military readiness, but what is worse is that (assuming Stephen and others commenting along the lines he’s taken are correct), the action was vindictive, a spiteful and childish response to the fact that mainstream LGBT groups did not stoke the President’s ego with sufficient adulation during and after the election. I don’t deny that as a factor because the “King Two-Year-Old” propensities of the President are well known, but I don’t think that the explanation is sufficient because it doesn’t explain the timing. I believe that Jorge and others who suggest that the President twitted because he was “feeling the heat on Jeff Sessions” from conservatives and saw the transgender twit-storm as a way to deflect.

    President Trump has twitted, and the adults in the room (the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and others responsible for military readiness) are going to have to clean up after him, yet again.

    Maybe General Kelly can bring a reasonable level of professionalism to the White House staff, most notably the President. I hope so, but I’m not optimistic.

    ==============

    ** The funniest of which was White House military advisor Sebastian Gorka’s assertion on BBC-4 that the President took the action “out of the warmth of his consideration for this population” because serving in the military is stressful — “[a] hierarchical military environment where they are under the utmost pressure to kill or be killed.” You think?

    • posted by Jorge on

      We don’t know if it is correct or not, because the President’s precipitous action was taken before the facts are known.

      There’s a Friday column by (mostly) conservative columnist Linda Chavez that points out there are many medical and mental health exclusions from military service, and asks questions about the military readiness of people recovering from surgery and the battlefield implications for those who need lifelong medication. It’s also the first time I’ve seen or read a conservative commentator use the term gender dysphora.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      There’s a Friday column by (mostly) conservative columnist Linda Chavez that points out there are many medical and mental health exclusions from military service, and asks questions about the military readiness of people recovering from surgery and the battlefield implications for those who need lifelong medication.

      Well, sure. “The Department of Defense is currently conducting a study on the medical obligations it would incur, the impact on military readiness, and related questions associated with the accession of transgender individuals who are not currently serving in uniform and wish to join the military …”, to quote Senator McCain’s statement, focused on answering those questions. When the study is complete, we might be able to answer some of those questions rather than speculate about them.

      I think that it is worth noting (again quoting Senator McCain’s statement) that “The Department of Defense has already decided to allow currently-serving transgender individuals to stay in the military, and many are serving honorably today.”

      Along those lines, somewhere in the range of 80-90% of all military personnel are support personnel, extremely unlikely to find themselves in ground combat situations where daily medication requirements would conflict with performance. Chavez and others making the “battlefield implications” argument, it seems to me, are ignoring that simple fact, which correlates closely with Senator McCain’s observation and current military policies.

      The DOD study — and facts about the implications of transgender military personnel in general — will become irrelevant if and when the President gets his act together enough to issue a legal order to the military, instead of twitting about it. At that point, the military will implement the order in an orderly manner consistent with military readiness, serving military personnel will be discharged as needed to implement that order, no transgender men and women will be accepted for military service, and that will be that.

  13. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    The President does not appear to have consulted with anyone responsible for the military before issuing the transgender twit-storm. The Secretary of Defense was caught flatfooted, and is reported to be “appalled” by the twit-storm. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were blindsided and quickly issued a “keep your powder dry — nothing has changed and won’t until the adults in the room can do this properly” statement to the military. The responsible committees in Congress were not notified that the President was about to issue the twit-storm. No preparation was done in the White House …

    If Reuters and AP accounts are accurate, the reality is much worse. It now appears that the President did consult White House lawyers and at least a few responsible military leaders, and was told not to issue a statement pending completion of the studies that the military is doing and until the military had policies ready to go. Frustrated, apparently, by foot-dragging obstruction by the military and White House lawyers, President Trump decided to twit away and create a fact on the ground, ensuring that (as one of my daughters cautions her children from time to time), “Tthis is not going to end well.”

    So President Trump again acts like an over-caffeinated toddle, and roughly 15,000 serving transgender military personnel are going to be fucked over unless Congress steps in, which it won’t, and would screw up if it did.

    Stephen will, no doubt, continue to twaddle on and on endlessly about “the most gay-supportive Republican ever”, but after this King Two-Year-Old stunt, his twaddle is running on flat-ass empty.

    LCR, for all its spinelessness, seems to be outraged by the President’s twits. Good on them.

  14. posted by K.C. on

    I’m somewhat confused as to why LGBT activists never attempted to negotiate with the Trump people (given that Trump had been supportive, in the past, of gay-inclusive anti-discrimination legislation) and instead from the beginning took a confrontational “resistance” approach. Now, Trump has responded by aligning with social conservatives who were not originally part of his base (Ted Cruz folks, mostly) . Perhaps Trump is to blame for this outcome. On the other hand, starting with the assumption that Trump was the enemy of LGBT people was self-defeating.

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