As a transgender reporter, it has been exhausting and sobering to report on the Trump administration's relentless and systematic attacks on the trans community, and today is no different. To the dismay of LGBTQ activists, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, has allowed President Donald Trump’s widely disavowed trans military ban to go into effect temporarily, CNN reported.

The impact of the trans military ban will be far-reaching and devastating: According to some estimates, the United States is the largest employer of transgender people in the world, with an estimated 15,500 active-duty service members in its employ.

President Trump first announced his trans military ban in July 2017, on Twitter, inciting a swift and furious backlash. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that trans in the military would entail,” he said. “Thank you.”

Though President Trump’s administration has remained adamant in his claims and persistently moved to advance the ban to the Supreme Court, Trump's assertions about the costs and challenges associated with allowing trans people to serve are riddled with untruths. The trans military ban is no more than anti-trans hysteria and misinformation dressed up as a strategic, protective measure.

I decided to fact-check the various arguments at the core of the trans military ban.

Trans people are not mentally ill

For decades, the assertion that trans people are mentally unwell has been at the root of transphobic initiatives. President Trump’s trans military ban memorandum, drafted by a former defense secretary on March 23, 2018, suggests that trans people should not serve based on the unsubstantiated idea that trans people are mentally unfit for the armed forces.

It is true that up until 2013, being trans was classified as a mental disorder, referred to as “gender identity disorder” by the American Psychiatric Association. But since 2013, the term “gender identity disorder” has been replaced with “gender dysphoria,” and medical organizations, including the American Medical Association have adopted a formal policy stating that there is no legitimate medical rationale for excluding transgender people from serving openly in the military.

Trump's March 2018 memorandum was filled with discredited lies about trans people and our mental competence, even suggesting that treatments for gender dysphoria are ineffective by citing the World Health Organization’s (WHO) former classification of “transsexualism” as a mental disorder.

But in June 2018, the WHO announced that being trans is not an illness, changing its former classification of “transsexualism” to “gender incongruence,” a landmark shift in public perception of trans mental health, and ultimately stripping the Trump administration of a key component of its argument that trans people shouldn’t serve in the military.

Trans service members are not a financial burden

In his original tweet, President Trump claimed that trans people in the military pose an undue economic burden by serving. These assertions are not supported by facts.

In 2016, the Rand Corporation released a study citing that trans medical costs represent an “exceedingly small portion of active-component health care expenditures.” The study also determined that the supposed “tremendous costs,” according to President Trump, associated with providing trans service members gender-affirming healthcare are negligible, comprising only 0.005–0.017% of the Defense Department’s health care budget. This means the military would only see an increase in $2.4 million and $8.4 million per year if trans service members continue to serve.

Let’s put those numbers in perspective: The United States military reportedly spends approximately $41.6 million on Viagra. This number is five times the amount of money the military would spend on gender-affirming medical care for trans service members.