House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) condemned the Trump administration’s move late Friday to ban most transgender Americans from serving in the U.S. military.
Pelosi issued a statement calling President Trump’s decision to exclude transgender recruits from the military based on a recommendation from Defense Secretary James Mattis “cowardly” and “disgusting.”
“This latest memorandum is the same cowardly, disgusting ban the President announced last summer. No one with the strength and bravery to serve in the U.S. military should be turned away because of who they are,” Pelosi said.
“The President’s hateful ban is purpose-built to humiliate our brave transgender members of the military who serve with honor and dignity,” she added. “It will harm our nation’s readiness and hollow out our strength, for we only strengthen our military by honoring our values of freedom and equality.”
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Pelosi’s statement came after the White House issued a memorandum late Friday stating that transgender people with a history of “gender dysphoria” — those who may require major medical treatment — would be barred from the armed forces “except under certain limited circumstances.”
Mattis wrote in a recommendation to Trump included in a court filing Friday that the Pentagon found that “exempting such persons from well-established mental health, physical health, and sex-based standards, which apply to all Service members, including transgender Service members without gender dysphoria, could undermine readiness, disrupt unit cohesion, and impose an unreasonable burden on the military that is not conducive to military effectiveness and lethality.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted last year that Trump’s previous ban was “just plain wrong & cuts directly across the drive for equality.”
Schumer’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday night.