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WHEREAS, early Wednesday morning the Commander in Chief issued a policy directive via twitter that will reverse the monumental decision to lift the ban on transgender individuals serving in the United States military; and,
WHEREAS, it is as recently as 2016 that Ash B. Carter, Defense secretary under President Obama, began to make great strides towards solidifying the formal inclusion of LGBTQ+ community members into our armed forces; and,
WHEREAS, there are currently at least 250 openly transgender people serving in the U.S. military, with an estimated additional 1,320 to 6,630 individuals who may identify as transgender, according to a 2016 RAND Corporation study commissioned by the Department of Defense; and,
WHEREAS, the study concluded that allowing openly transgender people to serve would have "minimal impact" not only on our military readiness, but on the health care costs the President cited as his primary reason for reinstating the ban; and,
WHEREAS, the RAND Corporation determined that the estimated health care costs could range from $2.4 million to $8.4 million dollars, "an exceedingly small portion," representing an approximate increase of 0.04 to .13 percent of the total budget; and,
WHEREAS, President Trump is claiming that after consulting with "his" generals and military experts, it would be in the nation's best interest to "not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military," rendering his statement false and in direct contradiction to not only the aforementioned study but to the opinions held by an overwhelming majority of political figures on both sides of the isle; and,
WHEREAS, Senator John McCain, Chair of the Armed Services Committee and respected leading voice of the Republican party, has publically come out against the President's decision saying that those who serve our country "should be treated as the patriots they are;" and,
WHEREAS, the decision to make policy statements via t...
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