Aurora’s chief of police took a page out of President Donald Trump’s playbook late last week, turning to Twitter to expound on the transgender community serving in the armed forces.

Only, Police Chief Nick Metz chose to speak to the inclusive nature of his own department, welcoming transgender people to join his force as officers, dispatchers, CSI and administrative staff.

The tweet from Aurora’s top cop was seemingly a response to a series of Twitter posts from the president announcing last week a new policy banning transgender people from serving in the military. Pentagon officials have since noted they are still awaiting guidance from the White House on the president’s policy. While some cheered the president’s policy position, LGBTQ activists, local officials and congressional lawmakers denounced the tweets.

Metz told FOX31’s Tammy Vigil he felt compelled to weigh in on the question of whether the transgender community should be able to serve and said gender isn’t important in determining what makes a good police officer:

Metz said a person’s gender identity is not important to doing the job of a police officer.

He said the department looks at other attributes, including integrity, honesty and accountability.

“To have people come from diverse backgrounds, ethnicity or religious, people who have diverse experiences who can approach these situations in a compassionate and empathic manner … to see something that was excluding a particular group of folks, it hit me hard,” Metz said.

Metz said the police department will have a recruiting table at the city’s Aurora Pride event on Aug. 5.