"I Gave Up Freedoms” - Trans Man Delivers Powerful Rebuke Of Military Ban

“I’m sorry you haven’t gotten to know soldiers like me,” he said.

The story of a trans man being forced out of the armed forces after almost two decades and two deployments is going viral on TikTok, following his emotional account of facing Trump’s anti-trans military ban.

“Today, I’m not OK,” the poster, who uses the handle @ThatOneGuy_Nick, said in a May 8 video. “A career that I have been working for—going on 18 years—is gonna be stripped away from me within the next 6 months.”

Initial lower court rulings had deemed Trump’s executive order unconstitutional, pressing pause on its execution until the matter was fully litigated. As one federal judge wrote, its assertion that trans people are “inherently unfit” to serve has “no relation to fact.” That same judge said the ban is “soaked in animus and dripping with pretext.”

But earlier this week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration’s ban on transgender military service could resume as the case is returned to the Ninth Circuit for review.

“I have spoke highly of the military,” Nick said. “I have defended the actions of the DoD, [only] to have the DoD spit in my face.”

Even if the courts once again side with the plaintiffs—who are highly decorated trans and non-binary service members—irreparable harm has already taken place, which will continue as the ban further outs and fires trans people.

“I have transitioned for the last nine years of an almost 18-year career,” Nick continued. “I've gotten awards and ribbons and accolades and been successful. If you were going to tell me that it was because I'm physically incapable of doing this job, I would accept it. But you're telling someone who is physically capable of doing the job that they are incompatible with military service because of the person that they are.”

In a memo from the same day Nick’s video was posted, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote that “expressing a false 'gender identity' divergent from an individual's sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for Military Service. Service by individuals with a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibiting symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria is not in the best interest of the Military Services and is not clearly consistent with the interests of national security.”

Trans service members may opt to “separate voluntarily” and “be eligible for voluntary separation pay,” the memo says. “On conclusion of the self-identification eligibility window, the Military Departments will initiate involuntary separation processes.”

The policy opens up the floodgates to McCarthyist purges of anyone even suspected of being trans. It also pulls the rug out from under countless Americans in the armed forces—alongside an avalanche of other Trump-led attacks on veterans, including vicious budget and staffing cuts to the Veterans Health Administration as well as the veterans suicide hotline.

Trump has also slashed funding for welfare services like Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP, which are utilized by millions of veterans and their families nationwide—a population that is disproportionately disabled, often due to service-related factors.

It also likely means that trans service members ousted by the executive order will lose out on their retirement benefits.

“I gave up freedoms,” Nick said. “I gave that up because I knew that at the end of my career, that something better was coming. And it's being taken away.”

“All I wanna do is just finish my time,” he added. “I'm not OK. But tomorrow, I'm going to put my boots on and I'm going to go to work.”