'I'll drop whatever I'm doing' to join the military, says trans student who lost his ROTC scholarship to Trump's ban

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'I'll drop whatever I'm doing' to join the military, says trans student who lost his ROTC scholarship to Trump's ban

Map Pesqueira

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for GLAAD

Map Pesqueira speaks onstage during the 30th Annual GLAAD Media Awards New York at New York Hilton Midtown on May 04, 2019 in New York City.

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  • Map Pesqueira, a 19-year-old trans film student at the University of Texas at Austin, lost his Army ROTC scholarship this spring, around the time that Trump's transgender troop ban went into effect.
  • "I would watch basic training videos for the Army before school, and I knew that's exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up," Pesqueira told INSIDER.
  • Pesqueira received support from Caitlin Jenner to help continue his education during a "Good Morning America" segment in June.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

When Map Pesqueira learned that he was losing the Army ROTC scholarship that would pay three years of tuition at the University of Texas at Austin, he did what anyone in need of financial support would do: He set up a GoFundMe page to request help paying for his next year of college.

But Pesqueira, 19, wasn't just a kid who caught a bad break. He's apparently the first person to be prevented from joining the military by President Donald Trump's ban on transgender troops.

Pesqueira knew he was trans from a young age, and also grew up surrounded by the military. "My cousin serves in the Marines, my brother was an officer in the Army, my grandfather served as a Navy sailor in the Vietnam War, so the military has been in my family and has a heavy influence on me."

Pesqueira remembers going to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas with his father, who worked as a funeral director and worked on funerals at the base. "When I was younger, he would come home and give me the unit coins that soldiers gave to him, and I was really fascinated by these coins and their uniqueness and exclusivity to members of the military. And that's sort of how I started falling in love with it," he told INSIDER by phone.

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As a middle school student, "I would watch basic training videos for the Army before school, and I knew that's exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up."

But he also knew that he needed to live his life in a body that matched who he was inside. Pesqueira recounted an early memory of visiting Santa Claus at age 5 or 6. When asked what he wanted for Christmas, Pesqueira said that he wanted to be a boy.

Pesqueira began medically transitioning when he turned 18, even with the looming threat of Trump's ban on transgender troops making its way to the Supreme Court.

"It was very freeing for me, and I was fortunate enough to go to a school where identities like mine were accepted and there was... I wasn't the only transgender person at my school and it was very freeing to be able to express myself."

And in applying for the scholarship, Pesqueira thought the idea of a ban on transgender troops was so absurd that it couldn't possibly be enacted. "When I applied for the scholarship, it was in fall of 2017, the tweets about Trump's intention to bar trans people had already come out. I fully knew that there was a possibility that this could be a policy that would actually be created," he said.

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"I kept telling myself, 'There's no way that this is actually going to happen,'" he said. "It just didn't make any sense to me."

Pesqueira said he received the scholarship in May 2018, and "had all of it planned out," he said. "I would commission as a second lieutenant, as a signal officer or military intelligence officer, and eventually [become] a public relations officer, working out on the West Coast," he said.

"I have a love for media, and storytelling, and filmmaking," the film student said, "but I also have a love for the military." A role as a public affairs officer would merge his two passions.

Pesquiera said he was assigned an advisor from the Department of Defense who would help him navigate the issues arising from the possible ban. Since the scholarship wouldn't go into effect until his sophomore year in college, dramatic changes could happen before it went into effect.

Pesqueira said it was never clear whether he had joined the military under the previous policy of accepting trans troops, effective when he received the scholarship - or under the new policy, when the scholarship would go into effect.

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Pesqueira told the Daily Beast that he learned he was being medically disqualified from the military on April 8, 2019. "That was the [first] moment I was ever notified that I was being held to the new policy," he said. Under the new ban, which was enacted on April 12, 2019, transgender people who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and have begun to medically transition are disqualified from service. Trans people are allowed to serve if they have lived in their birth sex for at least three years prior to enlistment.

The Department of Defense spokesperson told The Daily Beast, "The student's gender identity did not impact his status in the ROTC program. The scholarship offer was contingent upon meeting the standards required of all prospective recruits; the student did not meet these standards," further stating, "The offer was contingent upon meeting service entry standards. There are a wide range of medical conditions that make prospective recruits unfit for military service. It would be improper to discuss the medical history of a particular candidate." Defense Department spokeswoman Jessica Maxwell confirmed the conditions of the offer to Pesqueira and declined to comment further.

After the media began covering Pesqueira's story, he got an unusual invitation: to meet with Caitlyn Jenner for "Good Morning America."

"I never expected an outreach from Caitlyn Jenner," Pesqueira said. "When I met her, it felt really right."

Although Jenner, a celebrity and transgender woman, had been a Trump supporter in the past, "She was just as astounded by the trans ban as anybody was."

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Jenner presented Pesqueira with a check for $25,000 to help finance his education.

"What I've learned from this whole situation is the military [...] is the right choice, it's just not the right time," Pesqueira said. And if the ban is overturned, "I'll drop whatever I'm doing to go achieve the dream that I wanted when I was a kid of serving in the military. There's no doubt that I would pursue that."

In the meantime, he's been thrust into the spotlight, becoming the face of how the trans ban is affecting real people. As a film student, Pesqueira is more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it, he said, but "We need the ignorance to go away, we need more education."

But despite his newfound advocacy - he made an appearance at this year's GLAAD awards - Pesqueira is still just a teenager.

"I think people tend to forget that I'm just a normal, 19-year-old college student working to get an education," Pesqueira said.

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"Yes, the story is big and it's important, but I'm still a kid."

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