Transgender troops: A presidential tweet is not an order

Unmoved by President Donald Trump’s proclamation-by-Twitter, top Pentagon leaders declared on Thursday they’ll allow transgender troops to remain in uniform until Defense Secretary Jim Mattis receives an authoritative directive to remove them.

For now, “there will be no modifications” to current policy, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an internal memo to all military service chiefs, commanders and enlisted leaders. That was despite Trump’s announcement Wednesday on Twitter that he will not “accept or allow” transgender people to serve in the U.S. military.

A Merced transgender women, Jamie Bradley, said she wasn’t surprised by the president’s announcement on Twitter. She said she doesn’t believe the LGBTQ community matters to the president.

“I didn’t believe him for a second,” the 62-year-old military veteran said. “This is just another distraction. He doesn’t care about us at all.”

Bradley, who served in the Coast Guard for 20 years and the U.S. Army for three years, said the action was an effort to move attention away from the ongoing investigation into Russian involvement during the 2016 campaign.

By late Thursday, the Pentagon still had nothing more to go on than the tweets, a highly irregular circumstance that put Mattis and others in the chain of command in a position of awkward unease, if not paralysis. A commander in chief normally works out policy changes of this magnitude in advance in order to preserve order and morale.

Trump’s tweets drew quick, sometimes scathing criticism from many lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, as well as many military troops and retirees. But social conservatives applauded. Protesters demonstrated in several cities as well as outside the White House.

Bradley, who is on the board of Merced LGBTQ Alliance, said the president’sstatement was “awful.”

Bradley said she’s known all her life she identified as a woman. She also knew that being in the military meant she had to hide it, or risk being booted out.

“I’ve always known,” she said. “It’s not a choice, it’s a fact. That’s why I never came out while I was in the military. I kept my mouth shut.”

Bradley added: “I’m a patriot. I served my country faithfully and I was happy to do it. I served my country so you can be free to hate me.”

Dunford began his memo to the nation’s military leaders: “I know there are questions about yesterday’s announcement.” He said nothing would change until the president’s direction had been received and developed by Mattis into written “implementation guidance.”

“In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect,” Dunford wrote. “As importantly, given the current fight and the challenges we face, we will all remain focused on accomplishing our assigned missions.” That last statement appeared to reflect a concern that confusion over Trump’s tweets might distract troops, who are engaged in dangerous operations around the world, including wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said guidance on how to “fully implement this policy” is still to be worked out. Asked whether Trump realized he could not change the transgender service policy via Twitter, Sanders said, “I think he was making the announcement of the policy change,” even though no specifics had been worked out.

“Transgender people have been working for years to be allowed basic human rights,” Bradley said. “Anything you want we want too,” she said. “How would you like to be told you can’t do something?”

Patriotism has nothing to do with gender or sexual orientation, she said.

Mattis has been on vacation this week and has been publicly silent. Sanders has said Trump informed Mattis of his decision after he made it on Tuesday. It was Trump’s judgment, she said, that transgender individuals are an unacceptable cost and distraction for the military and should not be allowed.

Bradley characterized the comments about related healthcare costs as “an absolute lie.”

“It has nothing to do with the money,” she said, adding that transgender people in the military aren’t a distraction.

Trump’s announcement caught the Pentagon flat-footed in a way rarely seen in the recent history of civil-military relations. The Pentagon has not released data on the number of transgender people currently serving, but a Rand Corp. study has estimated between 1,320 and 6,630, out of 1.3 million active-duty troops.

“Please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” Trump tweeted, even as hundreds, if not thousands were already serving. The implication of the pronouncement was that those now in uniform would be forced to leave.

Trump wrote that he had consulted with "my generals and military experts," but the White House has not identified them and none have come forward. Just last week, when asked about the transgender issue at a Senate hearing, Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "I am an advocate of every qualified person who can meet the physical standards to serve in our uniformed services to be able to do so."

Transgender service members have been able to serve openly since 2016 — a policy applied only to those already in uniform. The Obama administration began a review of the costs and benefits of allowing transgender individuals to enlist, and less than a month ago Mattis extended that review for another six months. Mattis said then that this “does not presuppose the outcome of the review,” but Trump's tweets appeared to have done just that. There had been no presumption that the extra six months was a prelude to a total ban.

The American Civil Liberties Union said its chances of getting a court to block Trump's proposed ban might depend on the details of the plan.

This story was originally published July 27, 2017 at 6:26 PM with the headline "Transgender troops: A presidential tweet is not an order."