Transgender National Guardsman speaks out on Trump's ban

it is unclear how the president's announcement could affect transgender people who were currently serving in the military one of those being captain Terrence Robertson of Minnesota Minnesota's National Guard and he's joining me now from Minneapolis thank you so much for joining me captain you were coming up on your 12th year anniversary in the military you served a tour of duty in Afghanistan you are returning home yesterday and you see these tweets from the president what did you think I didn't know what to think I stepped out the plane and turned my phone on and I was getting bombarded from friends and family and a lot of people just asking what's going on what does this mean how does this affect you and I think the first thing that I thought was what is going on I was confused myself and then that kind of turned into being angry frustrated and scared scared wife scared because this is my job this is my life this is part of my livelihood I've served honorably for the last 12 years and to now be in put into a position of being uncertain of what might happen next that would put fear in anybody I think yeah we should tell everybody you were returning from your annual training two weeks of annual training when you found out about this enlisting transgender individuals and having taxpayers pay for their medical transition has been at the heart of a political debate in Washington while we were all talking about a lot of other things some lawmakers were discussing this president Trump used that to support his decision to to reinstate the ban on transgender people do you buy that argument that taxpayers should not be paying for the medical transition of somebody like you well and I can only speak from my own experience but an undergoing gender transition I haven't had anybody pay for me to receive medical care or my surgery I've paid for everything out of my own pocket but the issue has been this is just gonna cost us more money that we really shouldn't it you know in your case say you paid for it out of pocket but the argument is that taxpayer should be paying for this right and you know there's a lot of transgender people that decide to not undergo any sort of surgery or take hormones or anything like that you know there are very few people that actually do go through with that for a variety of own reasons personal medical and that of that sort you've been in the military for 12 years how is being transgender impacted your time in the military well I mean it really hasn't I've had nothing but support all the way up and down my chain of command from the soldiers that I'm in charge of as being a company commander and it hasn't had an impact whatsoever on my unit or the organization so if you could talk to the president today about this issue what are the main highlights you'd want to get across to him what does he need to know I think he needs to know that this is going to affect a lot of people I can't imagine how they're going to try to solve the problem of getting people to replace all the people that are transgender in the military currently being that we are struggling right now so much as it is to try to build our numbers up and get our strength up in the military and then to think of all of us just being asked or told that we can no longer serve I don't know what that means for the future of our military have you talked to other people who are transgender and serving yes I mean not over the telephone we've been communicating via email and on social media there's a large group of people that are in the same position right now that are scared I just don't know what to think or what this means for our future in the military you know there are other people who you know are have argued that perhaps the president is trying to reach out to his more conservative base by doing something like this you know what do you want not just the president but others out there to know about your service your commitment to this country right I I can't think of a single person that decides to join the army or the military any branch of service on a whim we all want to do something that is much larger than ourselves and contribute in a way in our extremely patriotic and hardworking people in - to think of people judging us by happening to be transgender that shouldn't make any difference on our ability to serve and it doesn't make any difference on our ability to serve we all carry out our jobs and do our duties every single day and this isn't going to stop me from continuing to show up continuing to do my job I have never missed a training as a result of being transgender this hasn't impacted my ability to serve and I've fulfilled my obligations over the last 12 years captain Terrence Robertson thank you for talking to us and thank you for your service thank you

Channel: CBS News

Views: 248,910

Keywords: video, live streaming, live video, cbsn, Transgender, military, ban, Tarrence Robertson

Id: W6qeynsycZI

Length: 4min 59sec (299 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 27 2017