Women Born Transsexual

Among this week’s farthest-out assertions: Trump’s trans ban was an act of love, and Hitler was inspired by progressives.

By Trudy Ring
August 01 2017

There was great rejoicing in right-wing media land in the past few days over Donald Trump’s announcement of a new ban on military service by transgender people.

It’s the prudent, the patriotic, even the godly thing to do, according to the far-right outlets we read so you don’t have to. Oh, and it’s saving Western civilization.

That last one is the considered opinion of Breitbart columnist James Delingpole. “Just like The Simpsons in the days when it was good, Trump’s ban on transgenderism in the military is great because it works on so many levels,” Delingpole wrote, then went on to say, “Maybe the most important reason of all why it’s great is this: President Trump just did — again — what literally no other leader in the world is doing right now. He took a step towards saving Western Civilization.”

He continued, “One of the reasons we know that Western Civilization is on its last legs is because of precisely the kind of cultural and intellectual decadence that gave us Obama’s rules on transgenders in the military, and which is also responsible for all that shrieking we’re hearing from liberals now about what a terrible thing Trump did to repeal that legislation.” (By the way, it wasn’t legislation, as in an act of Congress. It was a Defense Department policy, which leaders of the department can change.)

Delingpole touched on all the usual talking points about the military being for waging war and not for so-called social experimentation, ignoring, of course, that trans people have been serving bravely for years, albeit in the closet, and not undermining its ability to make war. He also contended that covering transition-related medical procedures (which not all trans service members will request) would “cost the U.S. taxpayer heinous amounts of money,” without noting that the amount is a minuscule fraction of the overall military budget. And the military spends way more on Viagra than reliable sources project it would spend on transition procedures.

Over at BarbWire, Arthur Schaper, who’s known for disrupting city council meetings and political forums around California, called transgender people mentally ill. “Let’s state the facts plainly,” he wrote. “Transgenderism is not a civil right, nor an alternative form of self-expression. It’s a mental disorder based on an ideology which undermines the foundations of our culture, of any society. More gender studies, based in biological research as opposed to social justice sentiment, confirm that the sexual characteristics of male and female are immutable.

“Taking a knife to one’s private parts or shoving plastic bags into one’s chest will not turn a man into a woman. Besides, service in our nation’s military depends on well-grounded, sane men and women who are committed to the greater good of protecting our country and ensuring the safety of their fellow officers.”

Well, we’re reasonably sure transgender troops are committed to just that.

One of the wildest explanations came not from right-wing media, but from a right-wing guest being interviewed by an eminently mainstream source, the BBC. Last Friday on BBC Radio 4’s Today, host Peter Bowes asked Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka about the ban, saying, “Does that feel to you like a commander in chief who cares about the men and women who fight, often, and serve, certainly, for the good of all Americans?”

Gorka’s response, helpfully flagged by Media Matters, was that Trump was reinstating the ban because he cares about trans people so much. Oh, and by the way, they’re unstable.

Continue reading at:  https://www.advocate.com/media/2017/8/01/reading-far-right-applauding-trans-ban-and-misusing-history