Capt. Jennifer Peace on Being Transgender in the Military

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You met with the previous administration and the previous defense secretary, Ash Carter, about all of this. And in the Obama administration, the ban on trans was lifted and trans service men and women were allowed to serve. What exactly is the basis for the Trump administration’s ban again?

JENNIFER PEACE: According to the policy and the information that was put out by Secretary Mattis, the main reasons that they’re concerned about our medical cost per, unit readiness and the welfare and the cohesion of units. But I think it’s easy to speak to all three of those. The transition cost for service members is incredibly low. I think it’s one-tenth of what the U.S. military currently spends on Viagra medication. So, as a whole, it is incalculably small. When you talk about readiness, we have trans people who are currently serving in every combat zone that America is in. I have deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, I’ve been all around the world while transitioning and it hasn’t had any impact. So, one pregnancy from a female will actually put them out of unit readiness longer than a trans person’s entire transition. So, that argument doesn’t feel genuine. The other thing about unit cohesion, I have come out to so many people, peers, senior, subordinates, I commanded a unit, a headquarters element, while I was openly serving as a trans person. And when the tweets initially came out, I had so many people from my career reaching out, asking if there was any way they could help, just being so open and supportive. And we’ve seen that everywhere that we’ve had trans service members come out. I think the problem is that most people only know about trans persons from what they’ve seen in the media and from stereotypes. And that’s why I think it’s so important to do things like this and share stories and come out within your units and your peer group because once they know what trans person and really see that it’s not this uncomfortable concept but it’s your friend, your coworkers, your neighbors, they are much more accepting and open and realize that it’s not really a big deal.