We Are Beautiful
Today I published a piece in the Daily Beast about Trump’s hypocritical and self-defeating trans military ban entitled “This One Trump Move Proves He’s Just a Petulant Man-Child.” What I didn’t include in the piece is my suspicion that Trump’s objection to trans people in general, and trans women specifically, is rooted in nothing more, or less, than aesthetics.
This is a man who famously hires people based on whether or not they look like they came from Central Casting. He hired James Mattis to be his first Sec Def because, in part, he liked Mattis’s look and his nickname, “Mad Dog.” Recall too that he resisted hiring foreign policy hawk John Bolton for National Security Advisor because he didn’t care for Bolton’s walrus-like (walrussean?) mustache. In fairness, I also would not hire Bolton, although the mustache probably doesn’t make my list of reasons as to why not.
In both cases, Trump seems to have in mind what a military man (and it’s always men) ought to look like. Pete Hegseth seems to fit the mold. Despite Hegseth’s abysmal record as a human, Trump liked his look and his anti-DEI bias, a bias which extends to women serving in combat roles. Hegseth got the nod and barely squeaked into the job after JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote for confirmation.
Now consider the story of Major Rachel Jones. According to this profile on the official Army website, in 2023 Jones was U.S Army Sustainment Command Cyber Division chief. Jones was born male, but publicly transitioned in 2021, when the ban on transgender soldiers was lifted under President Biden.
Trump has now reinstated the ban, whose official proclamation reads, in part: “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
As I wrote in the Daily Beast piece, if humility and selflessness are required of service members, why is Hegseth allowed to serve but Jones is not?
The Trump White House wants to use the same rhetoric about “unit cohesion” and “morale” that was once used to justify racial discrimination and to prevent homosexuals from serving. But decreased unit cohesion and morale did not play a role in Jones’ transition story. In fact, the opposite was true. She said:
“’People here have been amazing. I know how lucky I am to work in an organization with such acceptance and everyone here has been really supportive. ASC has really embodied the concept of everyone is part of the team,’ said Jones. ‘I was initially a bit fearful of coming out as my true self and how I would be perceived, but I had nothing to worry about. As a Soldier, I’m still treated as a Soldier.”
She observed that acceptance is part of the Army’s core values. One of the Army’s core values, respect, states: ‘Treat others with dignity and respect while expecting others to do the same. That’s the Soldier’s Code.’”
So what is the actual difference between Hegseth and Jones? Hegseth comports with Trump’s idea of what the military should look like while Jones does not. It is Hegseth - alleged sexual assailant, alleged white supremacist, alleged alcoholic, and all-around doofus - that Trump sees as deserving to be the second-highest military commander in the nation, while Jones, a cyber-professional with decades of experience, does not.
We treat aesthetics as superficial, but their application in the actual world is anything but. Consider both Allied and Axis propaganda during the Second World War. Who were the enemies of each? In the Allies’ case, it was bizarre-looking, fanatical Japanese caricatures. Among the Axis powers, it was the familiar hook-nosed Jewish caricatures. Both groups cast their own military as heroic, lantern-jawed super-soldiers.
The problem with treating the visage as the vessel is the exterior tells us very little about what makes the thing run. When we judge people based on their physicality, we run the risk, at best, of dismissing good people because something about their appearance offends us. The problems get worse from there. The German Reich didn’t arrive at their policy of eugenics by happenstance; it was the natural consequence of devising an aesthetic for their master race.
And yes, I’m explicitly comparing Trump to Hitler and will continue to do so, not because I think Trump is as bad as Hitler, but because he’s following Hitler’s political playbook, a fact that should not go unremarked upon just because it’s distasteful.
Of course, when we look at Hitler’s inner circle, few of them bore any resemblance to their model men. Looking at Trump’s inner circle, and Trump himself, we see the same. For all of his talk of America First, his current consigliere is an awkward South African billionaire whose own sense of beauty is best expressed in the Cybertruck, voted by Edmunds Cars in 2024 as “the worst-looking new vehicle.”
But people are not cars. Sometimes our form does not follow our function. Sometimes our function surpasses our form. The human experience is rarely best expressed in our appearance. Instead, what we value most about our fellow humans is what they contain, not
Aesthetics are about fashioning the world to an image of our liking. What about trans people violates his sense of beauty? Is it because they sometimes do not look like what men and women traditionally look like? Or is it because they violate something more fundamental to conservatives?
If, as the white Christian nationalists who comprise a sizeable minority of Trump supporters believe, we are all created in God’s image, then surely we are all perfect manifestations of God’s love, however we express ourselves. If we were not meant to alter the way we were born, then why don’t these same people object to breast implants or hair loss pills or any of the other myriad ways we seek to shape the world more to our liking? Why is gender-affirming care ok for thee but not for we?
Because the people who clamor the most about God’s love seem the least interested in believing that love extends to all. To see happy trans people fulfilling their purposes offends those who believe they ought not to be seen at all. Today it’s trans people. But the aesthetic considerations extend to brown and black people, to gays and lesbians, to anybody who doesn’t look the “right” way (and yes, I’m using “right” as a pun).
To believe that trans people, and everybody else to whom they object, are made just as much in God’s image as them would not have the effect of teaching them something about God’s aesthetics, but, instead, it would teach them something about themselves. That’s a risk they cannot take.
Rachel Jones is now out of the service. Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense.
Ugh. This is gonna be a long four years.
I kind of do think Trump is as bad as Hitler… if given the opportunity, and if it meant being rewarded with money and attention, I don’t think there’s an atrocity he would hesitate to commit.