Perhaps the courts can see that a rational balance is struck by reversing the blanket ban on enlistments by anyone who has had gender transition medical care, while upholding the ban on those who require gender transition treatment and reassignment surgery.
More. Scott Shackford’s take at reason.com.
15 Comments for “The Transgender Military Ban”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Perhaps the courts can see that a rational balance is struck by reversing the blanket ban on enlistments by anyone who has had gender transition medical care, while upholding the ban on those who require gender transition treatment and reassignment surgery.
As reported by the Washington Examiner article Stephen linked, describing the Mattis policy: “However, anyone who has had or requires gender transition medical care would not be allowed to join or serve in the military.”
If citizens who have had gender reassignment surgery are to serve, it will have to be the courts that make it happen. The Trump administration won’t. Clear enough, but expected, given the news reports surfacing that the Vice President, working with Ryan Anderson and Tony Perkins, are largely responsible for the policy’s direction. Secretary Mattis supports open transgender service, it is said, and was “effectively overruled” by Pence.
Whatever the case, as Shackford points out, the new policy is extremely muddled. That’s putting it in the best possible light.
This is going to follow the path of DADT.
The RAND study commissioned by the military analyzed the armed forces of Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United Kingdom after each country legalized open transgender service, and it found openly serving transgenders had no impact on “readiness.” The Mattis report dismisses this conclusion by pointing out that each country reported some initial “resistance in the ranks”, arguing that this “is a strong indication of an adverse effect on unit cohesion.”
Courts are no more likely to buy that argument when it comes to transgender service than it bought the “afraid to shower” nonsense when it came to gay/lesbian service. New dress, maybe, but same old, same old.
Mattis will be gone by the end of the year, another casualty in the administration’s war on rationality.
posted by Kosh III on
“The military is not the place to embark on the long and emotionally complicated process”
that was said when Truman authorized racial integration, when women were allowed in the military, when lgbt were able to openly serve.
Each time it was not a problem—unless you were a lying POS like 45 and Pence.
posted by Matthew on
Black people don’t choose to be black. Women don’t choose to be women. Gays don’t choose to be gay. Your analogy fails. Trans is a choice. Gay isn’t.
posted by joshR on
Mr. Miller wrote: “The military is not the place to embark on the long and emotionally complicated process”
Kosh III responded: “that was said when Truman authorized racial integration, when women were allowed in the military, when lgbt were able to openly serve.”
Obviously, Miller was writing about the “the long and emotionally complicated process” of an individual who is transitioning from one sex to the other while being ready to engage in combat. He very clearly was not addressing the issue of troops accepting someone who is a minority.
But that’s so clear from the blog post one wonders if Kosh III actually misunderstood the point or was just bloviating confusion.
posted by Jorge on
“A medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria would also disqualify new recruits, unless that person has been free of symptoms for three years.”
I disagree strongly with this. This excludes people who do not transition, and will only encourage such people not to acknowledge even more strongly than a ban on transitioning will.
However I also consider the following: First it’s probably a necessary provision to make the transgender ban legal and non-discriminatory.
And LGBT history presents men with gender dysphoria as being more likely to enlist in the military, motivated by a desire to self-treat their symptoms. Like most military service, this is an unqualified benefit to the country. But it has its costs to the enlisted, because it doesn’t work. This will tell such questioning souls that this is not the way to go. At its greatest potential the military will have an opportunity to make a very positive intervention in the lives of these men.
But I do not believe the government should be in the business of making decisions or interventions in the process of coming to terms with one’s sexual or gender identity. I do not believe the government should be making statements about the right way or the wrong way to deal with one’s gender dysphoria. There are significant sociocultural and religious values/questions/conflicts at play in how one chooses to live with one’s self-identity. The military offers a mix of false and true hopes in helping to settle them. Let the young adult be responsible for his fate.
Mr. Miller says the military should not be involved in the long and complicated process of gender transition, conservatives say the military should not be involved in social experiments. But unless some kind of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is put in place, and I’ll need to check that, that is exactly what the military will be doing with this policy.
posted by Matthew on
Jenn-durr is nothing but a cult designed to reinforce harmful sexual stereotypes that exist for no other reason than to marginalize and degrade women and gay men. You cannot change what does not exist.
Like homosexuality, physical sex is real, immutable, and unchangeable.
Just say gay.
posted by Matthew on
Trans is a choice and a choice to renounce homosexuality. It is a form of ex-gay therapy. It doesn’t belong in the military any more than neo-Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan. It shouldn’t be allowed to exist. If we can ban pseudo-religious ex-gay therapy, we can ban the pseudo-religious kind.
Thank you, President Trump, for standing up to the cult of jenn-durr and helping women’s rights and gay rights in the long run.
posted by Lori Heine on
One of my oldest friends in “the community” happens to be a transgender woman. She was in the military before transitioning, and lived most of her life as a heterosexual male. Now she’s a lesbian. I’m not sure how her transition can be seen as having anything to do with “ex-gay therapy.”
She’s politically conservative, and not terribly keen on all the trans mania now going on. When she transitioned, she had already been out of the military for decades. She used her own money to transition, and not a dime of anyone else’s. In other words, she’s a real human being, and not a stereotype.
Personally, I don’t think we should continue to add letters to the alphabet soup. Anything beyond “LGB” has nothing to do with sexual orientation and belongs in a different category because it addresses a different subject. It simply contributes nothing rationally to the discussion to lump stuff together simply to make a political coalition more powerful.
Both sides have indeed staked out an extreme position, and both are indeed wrong.
posted by Matthew on
“One of my oldest friends in “the community” happens to be a transgender woman. She was in the military before transitioning, and lived most of her life as a heterosexual male. Now she’s a lesbian. I’m not sure how her transition can be seen as having anything to do with “ex-gay therapy.””
That’s just more het male co-option of womanhood and any woman who supports that is an anti-feminist handmaiden. Trans-identified heterosexual men are heterosexual men and always will be, and their co-option of gay culture and identity in the name of the cult of PIV-rape is as offensive as Rachel Dolezal’s blackface LARP.
“Both sides have indeed staked out an extreme position, and both are indeed wrong.”
No, this is a situation where one “extreme” is 100% right and the other is 100% wrong. Trump was in the right this time. The cult of jenn-durr is a cult and needs to be treated as one. Should other ex-gay groups be allowed to spread their hateful propaganda.
posted by Doug on
Being transgendered is no more a choice than being gay is a choice. The sexual reassignment surgery is obviously a choice, but the underlying condition is NOT a choice.
posted by Lori Heine on
Never said it was a choice. But thanks, Captain Obvious, for that totally-unnecessary virtue signal.
Trans people have their own set of issues, that are not adequately dealt with when they are lumped together with gays, lesbians and bisexuals. Actual trans people have told me this, so I have no reason to disbelieve them.
It’s time to stand on our own, two feet and think these issues through for ourselves instead of allowing our self-appointed Republicrat “betters” to do our thinking for us. They have their own issue–power–and they care about little else.
posted by Doug on
Was meant for Matthew who said “Trans is a choice. . .”
posted by Lori Heine on
Ok. And on this you and I agree.
posted by Matthew on
Trans is a form of ex-gay therapy. Gays who tolerate it are quislings.
posted by Matthew on
It’s a choice and a choice that can and should be reversed