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New Low: Donald Trump Takes to Twitter to Go Back on His Promise to Fight for the Transgender Community

Like we all expected.

Everyone needs to be on social media in 2017, but the way in which the Trump administration makes use of Twitter—Trump himself shooting his keyboard off recklessly—is horrible, and it hit a new low today. Just minutes ago, Trump took to Twitter to announce a new policy (which is already awful, but doesn’t hold a candle to what follows) to ban transgender individuals from military service.

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That’s just awful, especially for a man who claimed to be a friend to the LGBT community—and who paraded a pride flag with the words “LGBTs for Trump” around on stage during the campaign—even if no one who was paying attention took his words, or the words of the rest of his team, seriously.

It’s not only a regressive policy in an era when the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy has become a memory, but his reasons for it are (as all reasons for actively harmful decisions are) even more ludicrous. Trump cited the “tremendous medical costs,” as well as some nebulous “disruption” and distraction that transgender people supposedly cause just by existing.

He seems completely ignorant of the fact that not all transgender people have medical expenses related to being transgender, and those who do vary greatly in their needs—but that’s not even the point. With any reference to medical costs, Trump has made this about the government deciding whose medical needs are important on a blatantly discriminatory basis.

But wait! You thought we had sunk to the depths, but I assure you, it can get so much worse. Here’s what the real reasoning for this discriminatory policy is, as told by someone within the Trump administration:

They’re using the decision politically, to make Democrats take an explicit stance on transgender rights in upcoming campaigns, banking on the bigotry of those “rural, white, working class voters” we keep reading about. See, it’s not just about hating transgender people enough to use their lives as political pawns. It’s about banking on the hate of other people to keep you in power—which, to be fair, we’ve all known about the Trump team from the start. That’s how he ran his entire campaign, no matter how many lectures we’ve heard to the contrary, and here it is, plainly spelled out.

It’s unclear how he plans to implement or enforce this policy,

but in case you want to get out ahead of things:

(image: Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com)

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Author
Dan Van Winkle
Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct <em>Geekosystem</em> (RIP), and then at <em>The Mary Sue</em> starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at <em>Smash Bros.</em>

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