Wisconsin transgender veteran criticizes Trump's attempt to bar transgender people

Sheri Swokowski served 35 years in the Army and retired in 2004 as a colonel in the Wisconsin National Guard when she was still known as Jeffrey.

Swokowski was surprised but not shocked to hear Wednesday that President Donald Trump called for barring transgender people from serving in the American military.

"Frankly, I was surprised the leader of our military would even think transgender people were not capable of fighting for our nation, especially since we've been doing it since the 1700s," said Swokowski, 67, who lives near Madison and transitioned to female after retiring from the military.

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When "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed in 2011, gay, lesbian and bisexual military members were allowed to serve openly. But not transgender troops, who continued to risk getting tossed out of the military. That's because "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" addressed sexual orientation, not gender identity. And the military's policy toward transgender troops was to consider gender dysphoria, the scientific term for people who identify with a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth, as a psychosexual disorder.

But that began to change in 2015 when then U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter created a Pentagon group to study the implications of allowing transgender people to serve openly. He also moved all decisions to dismiss troops for gender dysphoria to the level of undersecretary of defense, taking those decisions from battalion and brigade commanders where attitudes varied — some commanders immediately dismissed people once they learned they were transgender, while others didn't mind as long as transgender service members performed their jobs.

Trump's Twitter message on Wednesday would reverse the moves under former President Barack Obama to allow transgender people serving openly in the military, citing "tremendous medical costs and disruption."

"It's sending the worst possible message that you're not wanted, that they want you to take off your uniform even though many are the top performers in their fields. It's showing that the military and Department of Defense is not an equal opportunity employer," said Swokowski, pointing out that 18 countries, including many that are U.S. allies, allow transgender troops to serve openly.

Swokowski spent 20 years on active duty followed by 15 years in the National Guard, teaching in the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point ROTC program, commanding a National Guard company and working in a variety of jobs while steadily rising in rank, including director of human resources for the Army and Air National Guard in Wisconsin.

Swokowski said Trump's tweets don't equate to policy and she vowed to protest any attempts to boot transgender people out of the military.

"If he's really set on this, the military has trained us to fight and this administration should expect us to do that," said Swokowski.

Swokowski added: "What does this say about our largest employer in the nation? That it has a discrimination policy in place. Integration of African-Amercans, the repeal of 'Don’t Ask, Don’t  Tell,' allowing women into all jobs in the military — that has proven to us that diversity adds value to every organization. Now we're taking a step back into the 1950s."

Darla Lannert, 64, a Vietnam combat veteran who served in the Navy as a man, was saddened by the president’s announcement.

“Who’s next? Who are they going to choose to discriminate against next?” said Lannert, who lives in Oregon, Wis.

Lannert said the military is the largest employer of transgender people and the message that’s being sent to them is that even though they are putting their lives at risk serving the country, the commander in chief doesn’t respect their service.

“For me it’s just latent discrimination against an already marginalized class of people,” Lannert said. 

Trump’s comments via Twitter are “telling transgender men and women in the military that they don’t matter and it’s telling them that they are unable to do the job for which they were trained to do, that he has no respect for them and that they are unable to serve in any capacity whatsoever. Which is not true - trans people are trained to do a job which they do every day and their gender orientation has nothing to do with it,” Lannert added.