Speaking at a high school gymnasium in Windham, New Hampshire, Donald Trump told several hundred supporters at a rally Tuesday that he once again will ban transgender service members if he is elected to the White House.
Trump referred to the roughly 15,000 transgender service members honorably serving their country, as “it.”
“I’ll also restore the Trump ban on transgender in the military – we’re going to add that. You know, we had it banned. We had it banned,” Trump declared, to cheers.
“You know, I went to the Generals, I said, ‘General, off the record what do you think of transgender?'”
“‘Sir, is anybody listening sir?'” Trump claimed was the response, despite reports showing he never consulted with U.S. Military generals before announcing the ban on July 26, 2017 in a series of tweets.
“‘What do you think?'” he said he again had asked. “‘I don’t like it, sir.’ And then I’d say to another one, ‘You know, they’re all afraid to talk about it, but you know, I had to do what’s right. You have to do what’s right.”
Trump’s anecdote is false.
“After consultation with my Generals and military experts,” Trump had tweeted, “please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail,” Trump claimed that day, ending his series of tweets by saying, “Thank you.”
As NCRM reported in 2021, literally every word of that statement was false. Trump had not consulted with his generals or military experts. Transgender service members do not carry tremendous medical costs, nor does employing them create disruption.
Trump made the announcement at the urging of anti-LGBTQ hate group head Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. Less than one year later Trump would elevate him directly into the administration, to serve on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Perkins later became Chair of that group.
Vice President Mike Pence was also integral to Trump announcing the ban, as was Ginni Thomas, the conspiracy theorist and far-right lobbyist who happens to be the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She met with Trump in January of 2019, apparently in part to force him to enact the ban he had announced 18 months earlier, that was tied up in the courts.
And then-Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC), who would later become Trump’s White House chief of staff, reportedly took a “significant role” in pushing for the transgender military ban.
On January 25, 2021, President Joe Biden, just days after being sworn into office, rescinded his predecessor’s ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Watch Trump’s remarks from Tuesday below or at this link.