Days after President Trump announced that “transgender” individuals would be banned from serving in the military, Admiral Paul Zukunft, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, said that he would defy the decision of his commander in chief rather than “break faith” with cross-dressing members of his service branch.
Noting that he had personally called one of 13 Coast Guard members who had “come out” as transgender, Zukunft indicated that the Coast Guard’s “investment” in its handful of transgender members was more important that following orders from the president.
The call, Zukunft recounted in comments he made during a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was to Lt. Taylor Miller, who used to be a man, and whose supposed transition to the opposite sex was covered recently in the Washington Post. “If you read that story,” said Zukunft, “Taylor’s family has disowned her. Her family is the United States Coast Guard. And I told Taylor, ‘I will not turn my back. We have made an investment in you, and you have made an investment in the Coast Guard, and I will not break faith.’”
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Zukunft said that after the call to Miller, he contacted retired General John Kelly, who at the time was director of Homeland Security (under which the Coast Guard operates), who in turn relayed the news to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Zukunft said that he has also engaged officers from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps to navigate what will likely become a major military sideshow as transgender soldiers and sailors, emboldened by Zukunft’s defiance, step forward to challenge President Trump’s order.
That order came in a series of Twitter posts on July 26, as President Trump reversed an earlier move by the Obama administration, announcing that “the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgenders in the military would entail.”
Following that announcement, the pro-homosexual Palm Center, based in San Francisco, released a letter signed by over 50 retired generals and admirals who supposedly oppose the ban. “Transgender troops have been serving honorably and openly for the past year, and have been widely praised by commanders,” the letter stated. “Eighteen foreign nations, including the UK and Israel, allow transgender troops to serve, and none has reported any detriment to readiness.”
By contrast the conservative and Christian Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, a Marine Corps veteran, expressed the support for the ban given by a majority of both retired and active military personnel. “As our nation faces serious national security threats,” said Perkins, “… our troops shouldn’t be forced to endure hours of transgender ‘sensitivity’ classes and politically-correct distractions like this one.”
As for now, it appears to be business as usual for transgenders presently serving in the military. Following President Trump’s announcement, General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a memo to military commanders indicating that there would be no changes to policy without further orders from above. “There will be no modifications to the current policy,” read the memo, “until the president’s direction has been received by the secretary of defense and the secretary has issued implementation guidance.”
Photo: Screenshot of a U.S. Coast Guard ad
