On Wednesday, President Trump took to Twitter to announce that the military will no longer allow transgender individuals to fight and serve the country. This has been a big topic since the news broke this morning and it has lead to a lot of people disagreeing with the president. It even led to Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai to speak out about the decision on Twitter, ironically, this morning. Pichai said that “I am grateful to the transgender members of the military for their service. # LetThemServe.” Which appears to be the side that most people are on, at this point.
Pichai is one of the first executives out of Silicon Valley to make his opinion on this matter known, publicly. So far none of the other CEO’s have spoken out, but that likely will happen rather soon. Trump decided to make this change, after consulting with his “generals and military experts”, and the move comes at an interesting time. While President Obama made it so that transgender people could serve the country (openly) last year, the military wasn’t able to start enlisting them until this month, due to the grace period. Which is why this has become a big topic as of late. Now, it’s still important to remember that just because the President tweets something, doesn’t make it law. There is some paperwork that needs to be done for this to become law, so there’s likely yet another executive order coming in the next few days. This whole move by the president also is a stark contrast to his position during the campaign last year. Which actually isn’t surprising many people. Twi
Shortly after Pichai tweeted this, the Google Twitter account also tweeted pretty much the same thing. So it’s unclear if there was a staffer (maybe Pichai’s assistant) that tweeted this for Pichai and then was told to also put it on the Google account, or if Pichai did it himself. But it does show that Google sides with transgender individuals, and will fight with them for their rights. Which is an important thing in this day and age.