One-Note Droning on the Transgender Ban

A sudden, even shocking announcement came from President Trump’s Twitter account on July 26. The government “will not accept or allow … Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity” in the military due to “the tremendous medical costs and disruption” that entails.

Whether you favor it or oppose it, and regardless of how this abrupt declaration blindsided the Pentagon brass, it’s indisputable that the liberal media could not and would not approach this subject with anything resembling objectivity. Never mind that military men and women — and that’s all we should care about — cheered the announcement. The press centered its coverage on the gender benders affected. They were unanimously offended and devastated, with no dissent allowed, no objection, no argument. Facts don’t matter in today’s news media. Emotional wallowing is mandatory.

On the ludicrously titled (and would-be government-defunded, if Trump had his way) NPR newscast “All Things Considered” that night, anchor Kelly McEvers began by asking a “trans man,” former Air Force Reserve Senior Airman Jordan Blisk, how it felt for former President Obama to lift a ban on transgender individuals in the military and have that be followed by the emotional impact of Trump’s announcement. She asked, “What consequences do you think that would have for trans men and women now?”

Blisk saw only doom. He replied, “That’s going to devastate them from a career perspective, from a family perspective, from a financial perspective, from every single way because the military is everything to you when you’re in.”

And the hell with the other hundreds of thousands who serve and are offended.

NPR marched through the one-sided drill all over again on July 30, with anchor Lulu Garcia-Navarro feeling the pain of “trans man” Army drill Sgt. Ken Ochoa. She declared: “People who support having transgender people in the military say that the military is actually the biggest employer of transgender people in the United States. Is there a large community within the military? And how do you think that this could affect them?”

Ochoa replied: “I guess large is a relative term. I guess I’ll put it this way. I know many more people who are trans that are in the military versus those who are transgender and not in the military.” NBC reported that an estimated 250 active transgender military members are currently in the pharmaceutical/surgical process of “transitioning.”

At the Associated Press on July 31, two reporters chronicled Germany-based Army Capt. Jennifer Sims (formerly known as Jonathan Sims) under the sensitive headline “‘I am transgender’: A US soldier shares personal journey.” Sims wrote an email to fellow troops lamenting, “So in the initial moments after the tweet, I saw myself forced into the state that I was in before I started transitioning — a state of depression, exhaustion and inability to enjoy things.”

Sunday’s New York Times carried a badly disguised opinion piece on page two from defense reporter Helene Cooper headlined, “When Soldiers Plead Their Humanity.” Cooper wrote, “I suspect that in years to come, when I am recounting what it was like to be a Pentagon correspondent, I will remember far more the combination of hurt and defiance in the voice of a transgender American service member when I asked him how it felt to wake up Wednesday morning to a tweet from President Trump that he was no longer welcome in this country’s all-volunteer military.”

“Trans man” Navy Lt. Cmdr. Blake Dremann told her, “To know your own commander in chief doesn’t support you is totally demoralizing.” In an almost mandatory turn at the Times, Cooper compared it to segregation in the South. It made her wonder what it would have been like “asking black people what it was like to be told they were not equal to white people.”

No one is allowed to call that comparison preposterous. Feeling pain alongside the gender-eviscerating Left is all that “journalism” can muster. Call this what it is: “propaganda” and “fake news.”

The Patriot Post® · One-Note Droning on the Transgender Ban