Introduction:  Saying that it’s been a struggle for the LGBT community to find equal rights is somewhat of a gross understatement. Marriage equality was only achieved in 2016 and that was only after years of protests and marches and a Supreme Court vote. The LGBT community overcame adversity in Nazi, Germany and claimed their trophies in the form of the pink triangles that used to represent oppression. When this triangle was worn during the Homosexuelle Aktion Wetberlin pride organization directly after the liberation of gay men in Germany, it started a movement that spanned from that moment in October of 1973 to this very second. So then how is it now a fact that trans men and women are no longer allowed to fight in the United States military? Is it ok that years of struggles are going to be thrown to the side and all sense of change in a matter of days? Using such rhetorical devices as kairos, pathos, and logos, I want to analyze what kind of thoughts could have gone into making such a decision that undoes what years of history have worked so hard to bring about.

First Body Paragraph (about logos):

• So this sounds counterintuitive but I want to write about the LACK of logos in Trump’s trans ban
  • Basically about how statistics have actually proven his arguments wrong

Actual Paragraph 

Strangely, when one takes a closer look at the Transgender military ban, there is somewhat of a lack of logos involved in Trump’s overall decision. Most of his stated reasoning comes from the ideas of how costly having trans service members is and how having trans service members would negatively affect military readiness. He has also brought up the issue that trans members of the military do not demonstrate “fitness to serve”, but in accordance with the United States Military Institute, “Transgender persons who can meet the standards of their physical body are fit for service. The standards remain unchanged. Those who meet the standards can serve; those who do not cannot. Transgender personnel is medically and physically fit to serve; they meet standards and serve today”, and problems only really seem to arise when it comes to issues of transitioning (both financially and regarding “fitness to serve”). Many people consider “transitioning” a physical defect that should prevent someone from being in combat, but when put in perspective, “a service member who is injured in combat, a car accident, or while playing sports on the weekend is provided medical treatment and … are routinely treated with medication, surgery, therapy, or other intervention and brought back to full fitness for duty” (U.S. Naval Institute). So basically what this is saying is that a trans individual that is transitioning undergoes, essentially, the same types of treatment any member of the armed forces that is on leave for an injury. 

Second Body Paragraph (about pathos):

• This is where I’d like to include portions of arguments I made in my speech
  • Essentially asking the question: how did the world as a whole go from Germany liberating gay men from prisons post-Nazi Germany to Trump reinstating the trans military ban that Obama had lifted during his presidency
    • Essentially: how did we manage to take steps backward in an issue that we had managed to take such great strides towards solving?
• How did we go from HAW and the pink triangles equalling pride to no more trans people in the military?

Actual Paragraph

Third Body Paragraph (about kairos): 

• Why did Trump decide to undo Obama’s decision to lift the Trans ban in the military?
  • What led to this decision
    • This ban started April 12th, 2019 – what was going on
    • Look @ his twitter

Citations Page

•  Caputo. “Should Transgender Persons Serve?” U.S. Naval Institute, 1 Dec. 2017, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/december/should-transgender-persons-serve