Trump’s transgender edict on service members falls flat

You have to wonder, would Donald Trump even know if a soldier, sailor or marine saluting him was a transgender person?

Likely not. Displays of fealty are the one surefire way to put our commander-in-chief in his happy place, oblivious to all but the warm glow of his self-assumed awesomeness.

Also, unless you are peering into someone’s medical records, it’s often pretty difficult to determine if someone was labeled one gender at birth and then changed the label later in life. Judgments based on stereotypical views of masculinity and femininity often are faulty.

And yet, last week Trump blasted out a series of tweets announcing that transgender people will be banned from military service. This, like so much else this president does, was not well thought out.

It was incredibly dismissive of military leaders who had been diligently crafting guidelines for more than a year to allow transgender troops to serve openly. They already are present in the major service branches and reserves. According to surveys, they number anywhere from 1,300 to 15,000 of the 1.3 million active service members.

Facing that truth, President Barack Obama ordered that service members no longer could be discharged or otherwise separated from the military solely for being transgender.

The deadline was July 1 to have all the guidelines in place. But the Pentagon had asked for an extension.

Trump attempted to cast aside it all aside with a series of tweets.

A handful of Congress members, including Reps. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri and Steve King of Iowa, both Republicans, reportedly had been prodding Trump toward this action.

Unfortunately for Trump, not all Republicans are buying into this culture-war foray.

Commendably, Sen. John McCain remarked, “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.”

Said Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch: “I don’t think we should be discriminating against anyone. Transgender people are people, and deserve the best we can do for them.”

What military scholars have found consistently is that being inclusive strengthens military readiness. Ostracizing a group or making them serve hidden does not.

Funny, some of the same buzzwords popping up in this debate echo the arguments heard generations ago about keeping black people from serving alongside white soldiers. Unit cohesion would be undermined.

The same sorry arguments were raised about women serving.

It’s pretty easy to see what this is about. A minority group is not well understood and therefore easily demeaned. An opportunity that is offered to everyone else —the chance to serve in the U.S. armed forces — is taken away largely on assumption and conjecture.

Transgender people are struggling right now to be considered equal. They have too few allies.

More people need to speak up on their behalf, learn more about them. For one thing, understand that transgender is not about sexual orientation; it’s gender identity.

As society evolves toward more awareness, there will be fewer and fewer groups to target. Or we can only hope.