The following statement can be attributed to John Knight, LGBTQ & HIV Project Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois:
“Today, we celebrate President Biden’s executive order lifting the ban on transgender service members in the military. The President’s action reverses the cruel and arbitrary ban imposed by the previous administration nearly four years ago.
The facts are clear. The ban did not make our nation safer and it did not increase effectiveness or morale for our troops. Rather, it simply denied the opportunity to serve to new recruits as well as people who had been serving effectively for years and wanted nothing more than to continue doing their job to protect our country.
Time and again over the past four years, in courtrooms across the country, the lack of justification for this ban has been attested to by a range of experts on military preparedness. It was long past time to bring this cruelty to an end.”