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Chelsea Manning, Joe Biden react to Trump ban of transgender individuals from the military

"The lack of understanding and bigotry and discrimination in it is just amazing."

Suzanne Ciechalski

on July 26, 2017

Update: 10:25 A.M. Eastern time: This story has been updated to include a tweet made by Chelsea Manning.

Update: 11:25 A.M. Eastern time: This story has been updated to include multiple additional reactions.

The tweets speak for themselves, right?

President Donald Trump announced via Twitter Wednesday that the United States government will not allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the United States military.

According to Trump, the military "cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail."

For many, the announcement wasn't a complete surprise — though the fact that such important news came on Twitter felt out of the ordinary, even for Trump.

Reaction to the mid-morning announcement was swift, sharp, and angry.

Most notable was Chelsea Manning, U.S. Army whistle blower who leaked classified military documents to Wikileaks and was later pardoned by President Obama. During her imprisonment, Manning also sued the military over its failure to provide her with medical treatment for her gender dysphoria

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Former Vice President Joe Biden was quick to weigh in as well.

Others shared similar sentiments to Manning and Biden.

Advocacy groups such as the Human Rights Campaign and ACLU were quick to decry the news.

Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter had something to say, too.

And U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand vowed to fight the new policy.

Even Ellen DeGeneres shared her thoughts, calling Trump's policy "hurtful, baseless, and wrong."

In the past, Trump has said he would fight for the LGBT community, and has even been photographed holding a rainbow flag.

But his actions in the time since he assumed the presidency, such as rolling back guidance on transgender students and bathrooms in public schools, says otherwise. Many were quick to call him out on the hypocrisy following his tweets about the military.

It's been a little more than a year since the Pentagon announced it would end its ban on trans service in the U.S. military. At the time, former-Defense Secretary Ash Carter gave the military until July 1 to work on policies for transgender people newly joining the military, according to CBS News.

The new policy announced by Trump comes just a few weeks after the military announced a six-month delay for allowing transgender people to enlist in the armed forces.

Leaders asked for the extension in an effort to assess the issues faced by transgender soldiers currently serving, and to understand what types of changes the military would have to make, CBS News reported.

Topics X/Twitter Donald Trump Politics