El Informe de la Resistencia: Esta semana en la lucha por la justicia

Forced Separation

Blog de Ricardo Martínez (él/él), Director Ejecutivo

Expelling courageous servicemembers who have put their lives on the line for this country is beneath contempt.  

Following the Supreme Court decision to allow the Trump administration’s transgender military ban to take effect while legal challenges continue, transgender servicemembers find themselves having to make unfathomable decisions. They must tell the military whether they will leave “voluntarily” or wait to be forced out.  

Active-duty transgender servicemembers have until today, June 6, to accept what the military has termed “voluntary” separation. Transgender servicemembers in the reserves have until July 7 to do the same. These are people who have served honorably, many for decades, earning medals and distinctions. Yet they’re being forced to choreograph their own dismissal, simply for being transgender.  

I recently spoke to a couple of our plaintiffs, who shared that many trans servicemembers can barely sleep trying to make this devastatingly difficult, life-altering decision. “It is really happening, thousands of us, many of whom have spent the majority of our lives working towards or in military service, are about to lose everything and have to start all over again from square one. It’s a very heavy feeling.” 

Servicemembers are left moving in directions that lead to the same unfavorable outcome: the end of their military careers. They are caught between a rock and a hard place – the carrot or the stick. On one hand, they take “voluntary” separation, which coerces them with “incentives” to end their career, like forgiven repayment of bonuses. On the other hand, they stay for now and face being pushed out later under even harsher terms.

This isn’t really a choice at all. Take Hunter Marquez for example. Hunter is a cadet who just graduate from the United States Air Force Academy. Recently, he completed the demanding physical and academic requirements required by the military but because he is transgender, he was not commissioned as an officer. On graduation day, he was presented with his “choice”—leave the career he’d worked toward, or face potentially repaying the full cost of his military education, a debt that would devastate his ability to launch his professional life. 

Regardless of each individual’s personal decision, honor and principle are drivers of service for each of our plaintiffs, and for thousands of other transgender servicemembers. History will record the unfairness of their expulsion. 

I can’t begin to understand the profound “sense of institutional betrayal,” as one plaintiff told me, that these servicemembers are feeling. I’m outraged by the abusive maltreatment these decorated servicemembers are receiving simply because of who they are. As the world continues to teeter between authoritarianism and freedom, I worry that this treatment is being normalized. 

We should, at all costs, fight being desensitized to the abnormal treatment of servicemembers who have historically exemplified the American values of integrity, honor, and courage. Our sense of the common good and collective well-being rests on our ability or inability to sense the chilling ripple effect of discriminatory practices aimed at our most vulnerable communities. 

Today is a heartbreaking and shameful day, as the implementation of Trump’s transgender military ban goes into effect in the short term. But our fight doesn’t end. We have many tools to challenge the hostile attacks coming our way, litigation chief among them. We are still awaiting an appellate court decision in our challenge to the transgender military ban that could yet allow these servicemembers to continue serving while our constitutional case moves forward. Whatever happens to transgender service members in the short-run, GLAD Law will keep fighting to protect them.  

We are in it for the long haul. Our plaintiffs, and our entire community, deserve no less.   

Qué saber, qué hacer: 

  • Send a message of support and thanks to transgender servicemembers.
  • Read this powerful op-ed from Wayne Maines: “I didn’t think transgender kids were real. My love for my daughter changed that.”  
  • Tell senators to say no to ripping healthcare away from millions of Americans, including thousands of LGBTQ+ adults, who are twice as likely to have Medicaid as their primary insurance. 
Dona hoy

Lea más ediciones del Brief de Resistencia.