By Megan Brewer —

In recent tweets, President Donald Trump announced a ban of transgender individuals in the military.

Trump’s three tweet announcement stated that the reason for the ban was that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

U of L student and part-time personnel captain for the National Guard 198th Military Police Battalion, Jacob Eleazer said, “There is no medical or psychiatric reason why trans people can’t serve and do so successfully because we already have been.”

The medical costs shouldn’t be seen as an issue. If an individual joins the military and begins or is in the middle of the transition process, the military should pay for it.

These are people who want to fight for our country and they should be treated with the same respect as everyone else in the military.

If someone wants to risk their life for our freedom, we should give them all the support and money needed for them to become the best version of themselves.

Instead of shutting out transgender people or making them hide who they are, we should be encouraging them to be who they are.

The only “disruption” transgender individuals will bring to the military is fighting to keep a well-deserved role there.

There are thousands of transgender men and women who served or currently serve in our military. Choosing to take away everything they worked so hard for is unfair.

This is an act of discrimination by Trump. It’s also one U of L shouldn’t stand for.

U of L is one of the top LGBTQ-friendly universities in the countries. To say that our fellow classmates can’t serve in the military because they are transgender is absurd.

A transgender person is no less of a person than anyone else. Saying that the military can’t be “burdened” by someone solely because that person is transgender is not going to go over well with U of L students.

If this ban becomes a reality, if transgender individuals are told they cannot join or continue to serve in the military, U of L won’t be silent.

File photo / The Louisville Cardinal