Despite President Trump’s constant attacks on trans people, Lieutenant Rae Timberlake, Clayton McCallister, Second Lieutenant Nicolas Talbott, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jo Ellis are serving in the U.S. Military and are proud to do so.
This week, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to enforce a ban on allowing transgender people to serve in the military. GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis described this act as “a disgrace for all Americans, especially transgender service members who have been serving openly and honorably for many years. Allowing this discriminatory ban to go into effect is out of step with the views of the American people, compromises military readiness, and will make America less safe. America’s brave service members and their families deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”
To talk about how “bogus” this ban is, Jordan Klepper from Comedy Central’s The Daily Show sat down with 4 transgender service members to hear about their experience in the U.S. Military.
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“This idea that we spend years of being non-deployable is simply untrue,” Lt. Rae Timberlake said. “I’ve never missed a deployment. I can fight tonight.”
Proponents of this ban on trans people in the military often use the argument that the military shouldn’t be paying for people’s transitions. CW2 Jo Ellis shares that she paid for her transition “entirely out of pocket” and points out that the military “spends many times more on Viagra than they do on gender affirming care.”
The Daily Show found that fact to be entirely true, with 8x more money being spent on Viagra alone than any kind of gender affirming care. It was also found that replacing all of the transgender service members in the military could cost as much as $960 million in recruiting and training.
“All the trans people that are serving go above and beyond the standards and do their job everyday,” Clayton McCallister, a U.S. Air Force candidate shared.
“It’s interesting to hear that we are too strong for sports but too weak for the military,” CW2 Ellis points out the hypocrisy of the situation.
Lt. Rae Timberlake, who has been serving in the Navy for 17 years, shared that, “I received an outpouring of support when I came out.”
“At the end of the day, all anybody cares about is whether I can perform my job when I have that uniform on,” 2LT Nicolas Talbott added.
CW2 Ellis noted that, “If more people met trans people like us, then there would be no issue.”
To close, McCallister stated that, “I’m willing to serve, I’m able to serve and I can get the job done.”
Learn more about Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ record here. The Daily Show airs weeknights at 11/10c on Comedy Central and is available for streaming on Paramount+.
