On Thursday night’s Daily Show, Jordan Klepper did what the Trump administration won’t: He listened to transgender service members. In a blistering segment, Klepper showcased the strength, commitment, and patriotism of trans troops — qualities the current administration continues to attack with bans, ultimatums, and dehumanizing rhetoric.
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The segment aired just two days after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to begin enforcing its sweeping transgender military ban, lifting a nationwide injunction and allowing discharges to start immediately, even as legal challenges remain active in federal courts. For the thousands of trans troops serving openly and honorably, the ruling was a gut punch.
Related: Meet the transgender Army lieutenant who is challenging Donald Trump's military ban
Klepper interviewed service members directly affected by the policy: Lt. Rae Timberlake, a 17-year veteran of the U.S. Navy; Chief Warrant Officer Jo Ellis, a Blackhawk pilot in the Virginia Army National Guard; Second Lt. Nicolas Talbott, a plaintiff in the federal case Talbott v. United States; and co-plaintiff Clayton McCallister, a transgender recruit striving to join the Air Force’s elite pararescue program.
They dismantled the administration’s talking points with personal stories of excellence, resilience, and military readiness. “This idea that we spend years of being nondeployable is just simply untrue,” Timberlake said. “I’ve never missed a deployment. I can fight tonight.”
Clayton McCallister is currently at basic training while Jo Ellis flies Blackhawk helicopters.
Ellis clarified her personal financial sacrifice: “They’ve paid for nothing for my transition. I paid out of pocket because I wanted to be mission-ready as fast as possible. In six weeks, I was deployable again.”
Yet on the very same week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—a man accused of sexual misconduct, who denies the allegation and has never been charged but reportedly paid a woman for her silence—delivered a vulgar tirade during a military event in Florida. “No more pronouns, no more dudes in dresses,” Hegseth said. “We’re done with that shit.” Days later, he issued a directive ordering transgender troops to resign by June 6—or face forced separation.
Related: This trans Air Force recruit wants to jump out of planes to save others. He's suing Trump to serve
Klepper responded with biting humor, highlighting that the military spends eight times more on Viagra than gender-affirming care. “If we don’t have Viagra in the military,” he quipped, “who is going to take care of Pete Hegseth’s whiskey dick?”
But it was Jo Ellis who delivered the most damning line: “It’s interesting to hear that we are too strong for sports, but too weak for the military.”
Transgender people serve at a higher proportion than their cisgender counterparts.
In February, Trump signed the so-called “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order—a stunt announced with East Wing spectacle that bans transgender girls and women from participating in school sports and threatens federal funding for schools that refuse to comply.
Related: Transgender Army officer Erica Vandal was born into military service. Now, she's suing Trump to stay in
The administration’s obsession with policing trans bodies doesn’t stop there. In January, Trump erased federal recognition of transgender identities with an executive order declaring that gender is determined only by sex assigned at birth. That order rescinded protections across every federal agency. The next day, Trump signed another executive order banning transgender military service. Then, he moved to block all federal funding of gender-affirming care for people under 19 and some adults, stripping coverage from federal employees and military families.
Transgender service members talk to Jordan Klepper about their service.
In the courts, the fight continues. On Friday, attorneys for Talbott, McCallister, and 30 other plaintiffs submitted a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit alerting the court to Hegseth’s Thursday directive mandating the separation of all trans service members. The directive parroted the claim that expressing a “false ‘gender identity’” is incompatible with military service—language advocates say confirms animus.
GLAD Law attorney Jennifer Levi, who filed the letter, included Hegseth’s public social media statement and the full directive as evidence that the administration is accelerating what plaintiffs describe as a discriminatory purge. The letter supports their effort to keep the preliminary injunction in place while the appeal proceeds, because the team says the Supreme Court did not consider the circumstances in this case, which stem from the government’s animus toward transgender people.
Civil rights attorney Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights is committed to ongoing advocacy for his clients in an interview with The Advocate. “This is a devastating moment,” Minter said. “But we are not giving up the fight.”
The service members featured on The Daily Show don’t appear to be giving up either. “America’s my home,” Talbott said. “This is my country. This is where I want to be and who I want to fight for.”
Timberlake added: “Come to the fleet. Come to the field. Come see what the thousands of transgender service members do every day in support of our nation’s defense.”
Watch transgender military members talk about their service on The Daily Show below.
Transgender Soldiers Explain Why Trump’s Military Ban Is Bogus | The Daily Showyoutu.be
Clayton McCallister is currently at basic training while Jo Ellis flies Blackhawk helicopters.
Transgender people serve at a higher proportion than their cisgender counterparts.
Transgender service members talk to Jordan Klepper about their service.
