It is a historical fact that humans will always fear and hate what they do not understand. This means that, ultimately, we shouldn’t have been so surprised by the wave of disrelish and discrimination that people with gender dysphoria had to deal with for the longest time. For the good trans men and women who gave their all to serve in the U.S. military, the height of it all came in 2017 when then-president Donald Trump finally got his way to exclude these personnel from service.

Many people like Shannon Scott, a trans person who had already given more than a decade of their lives in service to the country at the time, were told to either renounce their self-identity or leave the military.

If elected once again to office, Trump has every intention to continue his “good” work and further secure the exclusion and discrimination of these individuals, almost like they were sub-human. Almost like they didn’t love the United States of America as deeply as every other citizen. Almost like their service was of less value just because of their chosen identity. And this is completely fine. They are his beliefs, and he’s fully entitled to them.

But how about we juxtapose that against those of the current administration?

When Biden was vice president, he promised that the U.S. military would remain as it should be – a place where ALL well-meaning Americans could come to show love and loyalty to their country. In his words, “If I were president, you would not have to choose. Not a joke. You (Shannon Scott) would not have to choose. The fact of the matter is that we're in a position where transgender men and women are in a position where they should be able to do anything anybody else in the world can do. There should be no difference.”

As president, he has largely lived up to those words, too. One of the most evident ways that he has demonstrably done so is by being instrumental in overturning Trump’s military transgender ban. A philosophy and policy that Kamala Harris would uphold.

The Biden/Harris administration is preaching the message that is expected of the leader of what is supposed to the freest nation on the planet – love, acceptance, and inclusion. At this stage in the history of the country, we shouldn’t just be discussing tolerance. We should have evolved far beyond that point by now. And, even if we haven’t, it makes absolutely no sense to jeopardize what is arguably one of the finest military forces the world has ever seen just because of gender.

What Harris wants shouldn’t be that big a deal. She wants a military establishment that doesn’t limit itself and is able to fully avail itself of all the resources at its disposal. This is something that every right-thinking person would find sound logic with. She wants the U.S. military to be able to function at the highest level that it can. Objectively, this means that they can’t afford to lose out on the potential that the diversity of the transgender community can introduce to the force. So far, these individuals can meet all the set standards associated with serving; he wants them to be able to contribute their quota to the safety and security of the country as well.

In addition to making it easier for transgender people to be able to enter the military, the Biden/Harris administration also intends to make the force more accommodating for serving trans people. The immediate implication of this is that because these individuals have access to a non-toxic work environment now, they’ll be able to perform at optimal levels. This is something that can only benefit our military force as it’ll increase efficiency and optimize the quality of results.

No one likes to invite (or even remember) the comparison. However, at the end of the day, the oppression and discrimination that trans people face in the military is akin to what people of color and cis females used to suffer as well. There was a time when being black or a woman automatically disqualified you from service. Had we stuck to our guns about that, we would most certainly have lost out on the brilliance of the likes of Gen. Lloyd Austin, Lt. Col. Shawna Rochelle Kimbrell and Lt. Gen. Nadja West, among many others.

Heaven only knows how many bright trans people we’ve already lost out on because of misguided hate and fear. Not a single thing makes a trans person inferior to a cis person in terms of military service, and anyone who cares to really look will see this plainly.