What a Pentagon-commissioned study found about transgenders in the military

If nothing else, President Trump has shown himself adept at trolling Democrats on socially divisive issues that trigger raw emotional reactions.

That's precisely what is happening following Trump's announcement Wednesday that transgenders henceforth will be banned from military service. Trump said in his tweet that the costs and disruptions of having transgenders serve will undermine military preparedness, and Democrats, who only a few days ago were telling the world they would focus like a laser on blue collar jobs and other so called kitchen table issues, reacted with outrage.

For years, the military has been gingerly moving toward greater acceptance of gays and transgenders, and in the last months of the Obama administration, the Pentagon asked the Rand Corp. to study the impact of allowing transgenders — who account for 0.6 percent of the adult population, or 1.4 million people, according to one recent university study — to openly serve. While critics of Pentagon policies permitting transgenders to serve say it is disruptive and costly and undermines readiness, the Rand survey came down emphatically on the side of transgenders.

Here are its key findings:

• There are an estimated 1,320 to 6,630 active duty personnel, out of a total of 1.1 million, who are transgender.

• Only a smaller subset of these military members would actually seek gender change medical treatment, the study estimates. Rand projects that 30 to 40 new hormone treatments would occur each year; there would be an additional 25 to 140 new gender change surgeries. Additional health care costs for the military would range between $2.4 million a year to $8.4 million

• Some 10 to 130 active military members who are transgender would be unable to deploy as a result. Rand describes this as a "negligible" number given that there were 50,000 Army soldiers alone in 2015 who were unable to deploy for varying reasons.

• Eighteen countries already permit transgenders to openly serve in their militaries. The Rand study said it could find no evidence that the policy affected operational readiness or cohesion.

• But, added the study's lead author, Agnes Gereben Schaefer, "The foreign militaries we have studied have reported harassment and bullying incidents, but these effects have been mitigated by having clear policies and comprehensive training across their militaries."