Hours after President Donald Trump’s call to ban transgender people from the military made national headlines, San Francisco resident Rachel Rognerud, 28,
Hours after President Donald Trump’s call to ban transgender people from the military made national headlines, San Francisco resident Rachel Rognerud, 28, created a call to action that is gaining steam.
The protest is set for 6 p.m. at Harvey Milk Plaza, at Market and Castro streets, and already more than 1,000 people have pledged to attend.
“My uncle is trans, and when I saw Trump’s tweet this morning it made me very angry, ” Rognerud told the San Francisco Examiner.
A former tech worker who is now in school to become a therapist, she said her uncle only began transitioning a year ago, and the experience is still fresh in her mind.
“I’ m like the mama bear, if anyone comes after someone I love I come after them, ” she said. “I want people to feel they can be themselves.”
Trump tweeted Wednesday morning that after consultation with “my General and military experts” the U. S. will not allow transgender people to serve in the military.
“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail, ” Trump also tweeted.
However, the federal government would at most spend only about $8 million annually on sex reassignment surgery in the military, a study commissioned by the Defense Department found, according to The Washington Post.
By contrast, the Post reported, the military spends $84 million a year on erectile disfunction medicine.
