When the London Times published a late November report claiming that Donald Trump plans to “kick transgender troops out of the military,” leftist groups and media outlets clamored against the idea, warning that an estimated 15,000 transgender troops would be impacted. There’s no evidence this figure is even close to accurate.
That startlingly high figure of 15,000 trans-identifying troops has been pushed, without sourcing, by major news outlets including the London Times, Military.com, and Newsweek. Rachel Branaman, a spokeswoman for the pro-LGBTQ Modern Military Association of America, used the number to suggest that any future Trump administration action to remove these troops would imperil the country’s war-fighting ability (Trump’s team said at the time that the unnamed sources in the report had “no idea what they are actually talking about”).
“Abruptly discharging…
