FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER)

Today’s ruling by the United States Supreme Court to allow President Trump’s ban on Transgender service members to go into immediate effect will be a terrible blow to national security.  The move by SCOTUS will terminate the service of pilots, weapons engineers, doctors, drill instructors, special forces and other highly trained and dedicated member of our armed forces for no other reason than ignorance and discrimination. While lower courts have issued stays against the ban, finding it likely unconstitutional, today’s ruling allows the ban to go into effect even as the other cases proceed.

“Transgender volunteers have been serving openly for over a decade” said AVER President Penn Baker, herself a Transgender US Navy veteran, “and their service alone is proof that that Transgender personnel are a tremendous asset to military readiness. Throughout our military’s long history the civilian court system has often deferred to military justice, allowing statements such as ‘X is incompatible with military service’ to bar women, racial minorities, and gay people from opportunities to serve. We thought we had moved beyond such discrimination, and we are confidant that the pending cases will overturn yet another unjust policy.”

AVER, which has been fighting LGBTQ+ bans for over 35 years, stands in solidarity with our fellow veterans and active duty service organizations in opposing policies that deny opportunity and remove vital skills from the military. The American people are less safe as a result of this action.