SAN FRANCISCO, CA –  Palm Center director Aaron Belkin issued the following comments in advance of the two-year anniversary of President Trump’s July 26, 2017 statement, by tweet, that transgender troops cannot serve in the military “in any capacity.

“Prodded by culture warriors who oppose treating LGBT Americans the same as everyone else, President Trump tweeted his intent to ban transgender service members from the military two years ago. To comply with the President’s order, the Defense Department then reverse-engineered a rationale for banning the troops that was so flimsy that the Service Chiefs immediately repudiated it.

“Our nation’s 14,700 transgender troops served successfully under inclusive policy for almost three years before the Supreme Court finally allowed President Trump to implement ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ for transgender troops in April of this year.  The original ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ was widely recognized as a policy disaster, and President Trump’s transgender ban will fail as well. When military policy reverses course to satisfy careless tweets, this is the terrible result.”