Defunding The Transgender Military Ban

The United States House of Representatives approved the Rule for consideration of the FY21 Defense Appropriations Act which defines which amendments the House will consider as they fund the Department of Defense operations in the next fiscal year. Among the amendments approved for debate in the Rule is amendment #66 offered by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) that would prevent DoD from using any funds to implement the transgender military ban. The amendment will be considered by the full House of Representatives later this week. Aaron Belkin, Director of the Palm Center stated, “The Department of Defense should not be spending taxpayer money on a politically motivated policy that keeps qualified people out of the military, particularly when the military continues to face enlistment shortfalls. The House’s immediate passage of Rep. Speier’s amendment would send the fiscally responsible message that we should be spending money on protecting Americans, not on baseless policies enacted to score political points.” Last week on the third anniversary of Trump’s transphobic tweets announcing that transgender troops would be banned from the military the Palm Center released a policy memo explaining that the ban can be easily reversed in under thirty days. The memo was authored by retired Rear Admiral Alan Steinman, the former Surgeon General equivalent of the U.S. Coast Guard & it provides a regulatory roadmap of the precise steps needed to immediately restore transgender military service. The Palm Center is an independent non-partisan research institute that conducts scholarly analysis of U.S. military personnel policy with an emphasis on LGBTQ populations.
For More Info: palmcenter.org
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