It will cost the US military 114 times more to ban transgender soldiers than to keep them
President Trump claimed he is trying to do the military “a great favour” by banning out transgender people from serving.
Trump enraged LGBT activists when he announced a ban on transgender people serving in the US military.
The President claimed the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender would entail” – but it now looks like that claim is a long way off the truth.
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Experts now claim the cost of banning transgender soldiers will be far more than the cost of keeping them.
The Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and the Palm Center estimate it would cost an incredible $960 million to enforce the ban on out trans soldiers.
That’s 114 times than the cost of allowing the trans service people to continue serving – which is estimated at $8.4m a year.
There are an estimated 15,500 openly trans people in the US military at present.
Experts estimate that it would cost $75,000 to recruit and train each replacement soldier.
Based on hiring 12,800 new soldiers – the figure they estimate that would be needed to continue function similarly – the total bill is almost a billion dollars.
The only factor that could cut the total is if trans people closet themselves to avoid being discharged.
However, if the military attempts to verify someone’s status as trans the bill could rise significantly, as costly lawyers, government officials and medical experts involve themselves.
The decision, which was allegedly made to appease anti-LGBT Republican lawmakers, has distressed the thousands of transgender people who are already serving in the armed forces.
President Trump said he has “great respect for the community” but that he thinks he is doing a “great favour” to the military by attempting to ban trans people from serving openly.
He said: “I have great respect for the community… I think I’ve had great support, or I’ve had great support from that community. I got a lot of votes.
“But the transgender, the military’s working on it now… It’s been a very difficult situation and I think I’m doing a lot of people a favour by coming out and just saying it.”
He added: “As you know, it’s been a very complicated issue for the military, and I think I’m doing the military a great favour.”
A poll found that a majority of military families oppose the ban.
The Admiral of the US Coast Guard last month said he would defy the ban, and said he had personally spoken to all out trans members of the Coast Guard.
