President Donald Trump earlier this week tweeted out news of his ban on trans people serving in the military.

“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, 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 explained. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

The president may regard trans people as a “burden.” But Japan and other enlightened cultures of the Orient embrace them. They admire the trans community for, in particular, its martial qualities. On their home planet of Cybertron and back here on Earth, transformers fight as fierce warriors. The transformers indeed know “decisive and overwhelming” victories, such as at the Battle of Iacon and through the Ambush of Floron III. So, regarding this ban, as with so much in life, there’s more than meets the eye.

After all, what army in the world would not want to follow Optimus Prime, a TTM (truck-to-man) transformer, into battle? His ion blaster and energon-axe surpass the capability of any weapons system currently employed by the U.S. armed forces. By morphing from a biped into an 18-wheeler into a fighter jet, the leader of the transformers wields amazing versatility regarding transportation, too.

And here lies the rub. To robots, transformers remain human. To humans, they remain robots. Even within the RCDT (robot, cyborg, droid, thingamabob) community, transformers struggle to find acceptance. So, like fatsos, geezers, and beardos, the American military regards them as weirdos.

To send out the tweets at 6 a.m. without consulting the Council of Autobot Elders sends a clear message of disrespect. Singling out transformers by name as unfit to serve while not including GoBots in the order looks like a clear case of discrimination. Hollywood, an enthusiastic chronicler of the combat heroism of transformers, surely responds to this presidential snub.

America’s enemies, weary of the prospect of a hasty, confused retreat when facing a charging throng of transformers, cheer this decision. More tellingly, humanity’s enemies, the Decepticons, cheer it, too.