FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 5, 2019
Contact: Shannon Minter – 415-624-6071; Email sminter@nclrights.org
Organizations leading the legal fight against the Trump administration’s ban on transgender military service issued the following statement in response to President Trump’s false claims that allowing transgender people to serve in the military would be overly costly:
Statement by Jennifer Levi, Director of the Transgender Rights Project at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD):
“The President could not be more wrong about the costs of the ban. From a purely financial perspective, banning transgender troops is far more costly than continuing to permit transgender individuals who can meet the same standards as others to serve – just as the military does for all other groups.”
Statement by Shannon Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR):
“There is a reason the public overwhelmingly opposes this ban. Discharging highly trained troops is costly for American taxpayers and weakens our national security.
“The cost of barring transgender people from military service is high, weakens the military, and undermines our national security. As explained by military experts in a 2018 report, banning transgender troops ‘drains financial resources due to the cost of replacing transgender personnel’ and excludes otherwise qualified recruits, which requires the military to spend more money on recruitment at a time when every branch is already struggling to meet its enlistment goals. According to a 2017 estimate by the Palm Center, the cost of replacing transgender troops could be as high as $960 million.”
NCLR and GLAD have been at the center of the legal fight challenging the Trump-Pence transgender military ban since filing Doe v. Trump, the first of four cases filed against the ban, on August 9, 2017.
For more information on the legal timeline and ongoing developments in the legal cases challenging the ban, please visit notransmilitaryban.org.
###
Through strategic litigation, public policy advocacy, and education, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders works in New England and nationally to create a just society free of discrimination based on gender identity and expression, HIV status, and sexual orientation. www.GLAD.org
The National Center for Lesbian Rights is a national legal organization committed to advancing the human and civil rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community through litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education. www.NCLRights.org