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Despite Trump, transgender veterans honor their own
ARLINGTON, United States, June 9, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – President Donald Trump
has made clear his opposition to transgender Americans serving in the
military, but that didn’t deter transgender veterans from laying a wreath on
hallowed ground: the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Trump’s July 2017 tweet that people who have undergone gender transition
should not serve “in any capacity” in the US armed forces raised alarm
throughout a movement that had been counting gains in recent years.
“We, as transgender people, bled like anyone else,” Yvonne Cook-Riley, a
US Air Force veteran and a spearhead of the transgender rights movement, told
AFP after the Friday ceremony, as she walked a tree-lined path through rows
of white headstones in Arlington National Cemetery.
The Vietnam war veteran was among a dozen members or friends of the
Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) who witnessed the somber
ceremony at the marble sarcophagus on a hill overlooking Washington.
For years Cook-Riley, who began her transition after returning from
Vietnam, advanced the cause of transgender rights.
She shared in the jubilation of the June 2016 announcement, under then-
president Barack Obama, that ended the ban on transgender people serving
openly in the US military.
The gay rights movement was ascendant too, and the marginalized
transgender community was suddenly seen with a sympathetic eye. Just one year
earlier, in April 2015, Caitlyn Jenner — the former Bruce Jenner of 1970s
Olympic decathlon fame — had come out as a transgender woman.
Then Trump’s tweet changed the momentum.
In March the president rolled back his blanket transgender ban, but his
shift of responsibility to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis left open the
prospect that people who have undergone gender transition treatment are still
barred from serving.
Aside from Trump’s announcements, Republican-controlled legislatures in 10
states introduced measures in 2017 restricting transgender individuals’
access to gender segregated bathrooms consistent with their gender identity.
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“It scares the hell out of me, because somebody is going to get killed,”
Cook-Riley said, commenting on the current atmosphere.
Another icon of the movement, Phyllis Frye — a former Army lieutenant and
the country’s first openly transgender judge — said nothing less than a
“Democratic takeover” of Congress in this year’s mid-term elections will ease
the community’s difficulties.
“In November, people need to get off their butts and vote,” she said.
Before the wreath-laying, Frye and Cook-Riley participated in a TAVA
conference to help transgendered service-members gain greater access to
appropriate health care.
Ironically the gathering took place in the same hotel as a conference of
evangelical Christians pressing for more conservatism from politicians in
Washington.
Some in the transgender gathering decided to wander over.
“How can it hurt?” mused Nella Ludlow, a clinical professor at Washington
State University who once flew fighter jets for the US Air Force.
Ludlow, 56, playfully snapped selfies with a cardboard Trump cutout. But
she also met some of the conservative attendees, and hoped their interactions
“caused people to rethink” their impressions of transgender veterans.
– ‘They deserve better’ –
But her concerns for fellow trans service-members only amplified the
seriousness of the wreath-laying.
“They’re serving their country, and they don’t know, will they be fired
six months from now?” Ludlow asked.
“I think they deserve better.”
The number of transgender troops among the approximately 1.3 million
active duty US service members is fairly small, with estimates topping out at
15,000.
With uncertainty about transgender troops simmering, several members of
Congress this week wrote Mattis to “reject” his policy recommendations to bar
transgender service except under limited circumstances.
“Today our military benefits from the service of thousands of transgender
troops who fight in defense of our freedoms with honor and distinction,”
wrote House Democrat Joe Kennedy III in a letter signed by 120 other
lawmakers.
Ann Murdoch, who retired from the US Army in 2013 and then began her
transition, said the battle over transgender issues brought her to the
wreath-laying, as a way to honor trans soldiers currently deployed and in
harm’s way.
“It was important for me to be here today, especially with all the
political things going on,” the 55-year-old said, dressed in a crisp uniform
colored with medals and decorations.
As Murdoch spoke, an unknown woman walked up and shook her hand. “Thank
you for your service,” she said.
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