Five transgender decorated service members stood before the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee two weeks ago to testify against Trump’s trans military ban. The five service members — Navy Lt. Cmdr. Blake Dremann, Army Capt. Alivia Stehlik, Army Capt. Jennifer Peace, Army Staff Sgt. Patricia King and Navy Officer Akira Wyatt — explained to the subcommittee that transitioning did n... Read More »
If President Trump is ready and prepared to listen, transgender troops want to talk to him face-to-face. Captain Jennifer Peace, director-at-large of the trans service personnel advocacy and support group Sparta Pride, told The Daily Beast that she hoped President Trump, Vice President Pence, and acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan would be prepared to meet transgender troops in person... Read More »
A group of Democratic House military veterans on Tuesday called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to support a resolution overturning President Trump's emergency declaration on the southern border. In a letter to McConnell, Democratic Reps. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Anthony Brown (Md.), Salud Carbajal (Calif.), Gil Cisneros (Calif.), Ted Lieu (Calif.), Max Rose (N.Y.) and Bobby Rush (... Read More »
The Trump administration adamantly defended its new ban on most transgender people in the military on Wednesday, repeatedly claiming “this is not a ban” and “it does not allow discrimination.” “Merely identifying as transgender has no practical military consequence,” a Department of Defense official told reporters on a conference call. But the policy will have life-changing consequences for transg... Read More »
The Defense Department’s cyber warriors shouldn’t be too concerned about artificial intelligence taking their jobs, according to their commander. Instead, U.S. Cyber Command is looking for troops able to wield AI like a weapon. During a budget hearing Wednesday held by the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Rep. Anthony Brown, R-Md., asked the ... Read More »
Washington D.C. – The Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus announced its membership list for the 116th Congress today. With eight openly LGBT Co-Chairs, eighteen Vice Chairs, and 155 total members, this is the largest LGBT Equality Caucus in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives. “Fairness and equality are core American values. Unfortunately, as he has shown again and again, the President... Read More »
A row over anti-Semitism has exposed a cultural and generational divide in the Democratic party, which threatens its cohesion as it attempts to take on Donald Trump’s White House. Democratic leaders had proposed a resolution calling out comments by Ilhan Omar, a progressive freshman congresswoman, that supporters of Israel had “an allegiance to a foreign country”. These comments were widely attack... Read More »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Anthony Brown (MD-04) and Congressman Charlie Crist (FL-13) released the following statement after an amendment to guarantee a full day of Sunday early voting, introduced by Congressman Brown and cosponsored by Congressman Crist, was included in the rule on H.R.1 “Congress must ensure every eligible American citizen has the right to vote, the opportunity to vote, and... Read More »
Three former military secretaries have admonished the Pentagon for making “misleading claims” to Congress in defense of the ban on transgender military service last week. In a letter dated March 3, former Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, and former Army Secretary Eric Fanning explained that two of the witnesses defending the ban at a hearing before the House ... Read More »
The MIT Alumni for Climate Solutions in Maryland published a letter to the editor in The Baltimore Sun last fall (“Maryland MIT alumni: The state can help prevent climate disaster,” Oct. 25) which warned about the risks of inaction on climate change. Since the publication of this letter and many other warnings, the pace of release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has unfortunately accelerat... Read More »
The former secretaries of the Air Force, Army and Navy, along with instructors at the Air Force and Coast Guard academies, are accusing the Pentagon of deceiving Congress when Defense officials testified last week that medical treatment for transgender troops keeps them off duty longer than other personnel — and of ignoring the military's own data to the contrary. “In seeking to justify President ... Read More »
Since 2016, the U.S. military has spent around $8 million on health care to treat the gender dysphoria and gender-confirmation procedures of roughly 1,200 transgender troops. USA Today published the numbers released by the Department of Defense Wednesday. The report also broke down how many service members have been treated for gender dysphoria in the different branches of the armed services: Army... Read More »
WASHINGTON — After a year of military officials publicly emphasizing the dangers of white nationalism in the ranks, a poll of Military Times readers found little change in the prevalence of those racist views among troops. The issue of extremists in the ranks gained national attention again recently after the arrest of Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Hasson, a former active-duty Marine and Army guards... Read More »
DOUBLING DOWN: The Pentagon’s personnel chief told House lawmakers Wednesday “that despite opposition from high-ranking officers — and overwhelming medical data to the contrary — the military must maintain President Donald Trump's ban on accepting transgender recruits due to the ‘the accommodations required for gender transition treatments,’" writes our colleague Bryan Bender. "’The Department is ... Read More »
A hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday became a veritable tale of two cities as transgender troops testified about their commitment to military service while Trump administration officials sought to explain why they would seek to deny them from enlisting in the armed forces (while at the same denying their proposed policy was a ban). Each of the five transgender service members told the House Armed S... Read More »
