There have been several times during this presidency that I woke up, looked at my phone, and felt my heart just sink through the floor because the president is a needlessly, intentionally cruel person.
This was one of the days, back in 2017. https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/politics/trump-military-transgender/index.html

It just came out of nowhere. And while I’ve never been in the military, never will be... it’s usually a bad sign when governments start singling out groups to ban from things like their militaries.
His rationale didn’t make sense. The cost was minimal, there hadn’t been problems since the ban was lifted during the Obama era, etc.

But the reason that hit me with such a sense of unease was that if you can convince people who go around talking about how much...
...the love “the troops,” and convince them that some of those troops should be kicked out with a new policy based solely on who they are, you can CERTAINLY convince the public to accept government-sanctioned discrimination against those who aren’t in the military.
It was a very “oh shit, he’s going to really start leaning into a series of policies aimed at hurting trans people.” And he did. Pretty consistently from there on out.
And then it later came out that he just did it on a whim. There was no legitimate need, he just wanted to make the bigots in the House Freedom Caucus happy (their name is very ironic. “Freedom”) and didn’t want to go to a meeting. https://www.washingtonblade.com/2018/09/06/woodward-book-depicts-trump-surprising-top-staff-with-trans-military-ban/
That story came out on @KaylaPekkala and my first anniversary, so that made for a not-so-celebratory day! The administration went on to use those arguments in court. https://time.com/5654844/title-vii-trump-transgender-department-of-justice-supreme-court/
Even with the SCOTUS ruling, the administration has basically said that it didn’t agree with it and made no intention to enforce it. Instead, she cited the dissent as being the correct view. That’s... not how it works. https://www.washingtonblade.com/2020/07/13/wh-press-secretary-dodges-on-trans-military-ban-insists-trump-is-pro-lgbtq/
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