President Donald Trump's tweet this week, announcing a ban on transgender Americans serving in the armed forces took congress by surprise, including committee that work with the military, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
"Since transgender Americans have been openly been able to serve in the military, we've only heard good things about their conduct," Congressman Beto O'Rourke tells Newsradio 1200 WOAI.
The El Paso Democrat, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee thought the debate over transgender military service was settled earlier this month, when a bi-partisan group of lawmakers rejected an amendment called the "Prohibition of Department of Defense Medical Treatment Related to Gender Transition," which some Republicans tried to tack on to a military funding bill.
At the time, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) said that military applicants needed to figure out if they were a man or woman before they joined, adding concern over the cost of transition surgery.
"It will cost the government money, and taxpayers in the country are not going to foot the bill for it."
That's, apparently, what fueled President Trump's twitter announcement."Let's make America great again," Rep. Hunter, said at the time.
But O'Rourke points to a 2016 study done by the Rand on military readiness, which pointed out that 18 other countries allow transgender people to serve openly in the military with “little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness, or readiness.”