“Part of our soldier’s creed is, ‘never leave a fallen comrade.’ It’s all about being united together,” says Kathryn Goldston, a staff sergeant in the Texas Army National Guard who has served in the military for 13 years and came out as a transgender woman two years ago.
It was summer 2006 when she decided to enter the military for many reasons, like getting benefits for college, learning a trade, and getting out of her hometown. “I’ve always been drawn to the military because I like the way it’s structured,” she told Rewire.News. “Everything has its place and everything has a purpose, so I felt more utilized in the military than I did in the Civilian Marshal, and still do.”
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday voted 5-to-4 along ideological lines to allow the Trump administration to ban transgender people from serving in the armed forces—a policy first proposed by Trump in 2017. Goldston said she hopes the transgender ban wasn’t rooted in callous political calculation.
“I would like to say it’s ignorance, but I’m not in a position where I can talk bad about them, but I would have hope that they had everyone’s best interest in heart, and not just the handful of people that put them into power.”
Goldston says Trump’s military ban has been formulated with an exemption that allows trans people already in the military and already openly trans to continue to serve, but new trans people are not allowed to join. “We’re also no longer allowed to switch branches, and enlist from one branch to another, or go from enlisted to officer or enlisted to warrant officer or anything like that.” Goldston says it opens the door to judge transgender people and say they are less of a soldier than everyone else, “and once that starts, what are they going to try to take away next?”
It’s been a rough week for trans people serving in the military, Goldston said. “We’re still keeping our heads up because we know that it’s not what we wanted, but we also know that this is not over. In the meantime we’re going to continue doing what we said we would do and do it to the best of our abilities, and we’re just going to keep ourselves motivated and keep on with the mission.” Read more via Rewire