Trump Tweets Ban Transgender Service

AMERICAN VETERANS FOR EQUAL RIGHTS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 26, 2017

RE: Trump Tweets Ban Transgender Service

Contact:

AVER Public Affairs, Denny Meyer 718.849.5665 publicaffairs@aver.us

AVER President, Steve Loomis, LTC, USA, (Ret) 505.301.1737

Atlanta, GA (JUL 26, 2017) – American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) is astonished by President Trump’s statements this morning prohibiting transgender Americans from serving our country in the US military. On the very anniversary, July 26, 1948, that President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 to end racial segregation in our US military, President Donald J. Trump issues tweets to bar transgender service members from serving in our same US armed forces. Such an incredible twist of fate in history! One opens doors to liberty. One slams them shut.

“The President’s unilateral action concerning transgender service members is insulting to some of our most capable service members and disrespectful to the leadership of our military. Without full consultation, a President who never served our country has taken an action that discriminates without factual foundation. Transgender members are already and have always been part of some of our most combat ready units without difficulty for decades and will continue to be in the future. As long as any soldier, sailor, marine, airman or coast guards man has the physical and mental ability, they must be allowed to serve in the defense of our country.”

Current policies require that transgender recruits must complete gender transition before they can enter the military. Mr. Trump is simply denying entry into the military to capable male and female volunteers no different from any other man or woman. The citizens of the United States require a military governed by carefully considered policies and not by early morning tweet storms from a President who neither understands the current policy nor cares about the human cost of defending our nation’s liberty. We defend transgender service members right to serve!

USAF Master Sargent Leah Messer (left with US flag), a 15-year transgender veteran of the United States Air Force, would lose her job if Donald Trump’s tweets become policy.