Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019, there was a 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court to lift the injunctions in place by the Pentagon that let transgender Americans serve our country.

In 2017, Trump addressed the idea of excluding transgender Americans from serving through Twitter. The thread of tweets mentioned that he spoke with “military experts” and his generals to came to the conclusion that, “the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military.”

The thread continued with mentioning that the United States wouldn’t support transgender troops on the sole purpose of medical costs and “disruption that transgender would entail in the military.”

According to an article by the New York Times about the recent Supreme Court ruling, they shed light on the fact that the Pentagon tried to “get around injunctions that prevented the ban’s implementation by reverse-engineering the policy.”

So why does the United States government have this itch to erase transgender Americans?

In October of 2018, there was viral news spreading about Trump’s administration looking to erase transgender Americans entirely. The administration had plans to label gender strictly determined by genitalia during a human’s birth.

These scandals makes people question why our government is so obsessed with wanting to tell people who they are.

But also, why should trans troops be treated different when they are people too?

Society today has become more accepting of people than it ever has in our history. All 50 states have passed laws to legalize gay marriage and people have come to terms with considering the need for gender neutral bathrooms. We’ve come to terms that it’s time to be accepting.

If our society has shown signs of progress in accepting people for who they are, why are we now back-stepping?

Just because our government is attempting to label people, our society should be proud to stand against it. There’s already transgender troops serving at this very moment. Hate to break the news about that, but it’s fact.

Our government moving backwards is quite possibly another damage to come to our society. With having a government shutdown and a possible ban on the LGBTQ+ community, there’s another moment of questioning what is going on.

If other countries look at our country as “free,” shouldn’t our own people be free? Free to express who they feel they are? To express themselves without fear? What if they want to serve our country because others don’t?

So where do we draw the line?

Should we continue to ban a group of people or buck up and support them when they want to do what they can for our country?

Let’s face the facts as it stands right now, the United States military spends five times more money on Viagra then they would on medical costs for the transgender community, according to the Washington Post.

Doesn’t seem right, does it?