(WTNH) — Governor Dannel Malloy has signed an executive order reinforcing Connecticut’s non-discrimination policies within the military. This, after President Trump announced he is reinstating a ban on transgender people serving in the military.
President Trump made the announcement in a series of tweets saying the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
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President Trump’s announcement has upset many in New Haven’s LGBTQ community.
“I think people are very angry and I think people are very hurt,” said Patrick Dunn, Executive Director of the New Haven Pride Center. “Every person who wants to serve our country will have medical needs. What’s next? Women can’t serve because they need tampons?”
Many fear this will mean more restrictions on the military in the future.
“It turns to fear because the government did the same thing to gay people and it turned into ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” said Teresa DiNardi, a lawyer who works on LGBTQ issues.
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Malloy’s executive order says the state’s military will not discriminate against service members on the basis of their gender identity or expression.
“I wanted to send a very clear message of how wrong minded this is. Why would we dishonor anyone’s services? What the heck’s going on in America right now?” he said.
Some feel what President Trump said isn’t about the transgender community at all and that the President has a different motive altogether.
“He’s using this as a tactic to distract from all of this health care stuff and to discriminate,” Dunn said.
“This is just an excuse, and quite frankly, I think it’s to get people’s attention away from all of his other failures,” said Malloy.
