If the Trump administration’s policy affecting transgender service members goes through, “we become an endangered species,” Staff Sergeant Patricia King said.
When Staff Sgt. Patricia King first learned in 2016 that the Pentagon would be making a major policy change officially allowing transgender service members to serve openly for the first time, she felt a sense of triumph, knowing that she had played a part in history in the making.
"We have proven that we belong here"And for a while, it looked like that change was well underway—until the Trump administration took office. Now, King says under President Donald Trump's leadership, a new Pentagon policy that could come effect as early as April 12 threatens to undo the progress that she and other advocates within the military have made, with the new rule effectively barring transgender troops from being able to transition to another sex.
In a three page order, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asserted that “defendants were incorrect in claiming that there was no longer an impediment to the military’s implementation of the [policy] in this case.” "My initial feelings when I found out that there was an actual date for this policy were anger…and grief," King said."This is something that we have worked so hard on in the transgender military community, to show and to prove that we belong here. And we have done that. Transgender people have been serving in the military as long as we have had a military, whether it was closeted or open.
For openly transgender service members, King said that if the ban does come into place next month,"as of April 12, we become an endangered species." "I transitioned well before we were talking about policy change publicly," he said."At the time, I was one of the first women to serve on submarines. That would have been my tenth deployment at the time. I needed to start moving for my own mental health and so that's what I did and I did that for a year and a half onboard the submarine."
Then, Dremann began talking to senior leaders within the Pentagon"to get them to see that we are service members, not activists. We're advocates. We're service members just trying to be the best that we can be. We're not trying to destroy the military." "It just doesn't pass the common sense test. Not only that, but also the bureaucracy involved with getting the transition process going. Most are looking at years before they have the surgery. It's ludicrous. I would much rather get free coffee at Starbucks and just work there for six months."
But, King said,"that is what we do. Because it's the right thing to do, to take care of our service members. I am not at all suggesting that people shouldn't have the opportunity to get vasectomies or access to erectile dysfunction drugs. By all means, have both." The point, she said,"is that that's what we do to take care of service members."
Their testimonies before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel came a month after the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration permission to begin enforcing its new rule.
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