Jordan blisk5/16/2023 Our hearts are overwhelmed with grief, sadness, and anger. In addition to the Club Q victims, today, on the Trans Day of Remembrance (TDOR), we also mourn the loss of the 32 transgender people killed during 2022. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.The Colorado LGBT Bar Association was devastated to learn about the shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs last night that killed five, injured at least 25, and traumatized innumerable others. Air Force Reserves, talking to us about President Trump's announcement today that he intends to ban transgender service members from the U.S. MCEVERS: Jordan Blisk, former senior airman for the U.S. And so I think if we're talking about potentially trying to go after troops that are currently serving, that's going to devastate them from a career perspective, from a family perspective, from a financial perspective, from every single way because the military is everything to you when you're in. And for them to lose their career, to lose their family, to lose their support system, to lose their entire world, I mean, that's just - that's unthinkable to me, especially when they've done nothing wrong. I know a lot of people, very good soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have dedicated their lives to the military and to protecting the United States. I mean, knowing what you know about your own experience when there was such a ban in place, what consequences do you think that would have for trans men and women now?īLISK: I think it's absolutely devastating. MCEVERS: We don't have all the details yet on what President Trump is proposing to do, but it sounds like he essentially wants to reinstate the ban on transgender service members. And it definitely sends the opposite message of hope that I felt a year ago. And so now to feel, you know, this tension with what we're going (laughter) - going through right now, it's very scary. military is, to know that they were making steps towards being affirming towards people like me. It felt good to know at that point that, you know, the military, who is the largest employer of transgender people in the entire world, the U.S. You weren't in active service at that time, but how did that feel when you heard about it?īLISK: It felt great. MCEVERS: And then last year, President Obama's defense secretary, Ash Carter, lifted the ban on transgender service members. So it definitely caused a lot of problems in my personal life, a lot of stress. And so even though I was only serving for, you know, maybe two, three days a month, I couldn't be who I was in my civilian life.Īnd so that manifested itself in things like my partner having to switch my name and my pronouns anytime we were out in public to me being so afraid to use any bathroom because at that point, I wasn't comfortable using female restrooms, but I was terrified of using male restrooms and being caught by one of the members of my unit and then being reported and eventually discharged. And some of the people that I was stationed with at my unit were going to college with me at the same time. How did that play out for you?īLISK: It was difficult because during the same time that I was in the military, in the reserves, I was also a full-time college student. MCEVERS: With the ban in place, I mean, there was a ban in place on transgender service members at that time. You know, I started realizing that, hey, my sexuality is this, but that doesn't mean anything as far as who I am. And throughout that experience and especially given the opportunity to perform as an aircraft mechanic, I was given the opportunity to be able to express myself in ways that I had really never been able to in the past.Īnd so, you know, being able to kind of break traditional feminine gender roles by being able to work on aircraft and kind of be one of the guys, it really started to bring out parts of me that I had kind of known were there but didn't really have the words for. I grew up in the Midwest, and that was my first real experience being outside of it. The military gave me a way outside of the world that I knew. JORDAN BLISK: That was the first time in my life that I was really exposed outside of the area that I grew up in. And he says being in the military actually helped him figure out his gender identity. He enlisted in the military when he was 17 years old. He's also a trans man, meaning he was assigned female at birth. He's a former senior airman with the U.S. And to understand how that would play out for people, we're going to talk to Jordan Blisk. A ban on transgender service members could mean that trans men and women would not be able to serve openly.
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