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Joined: Sep 2001
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brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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OP
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
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Trump announces ban on transgender individuals serving in militaryPresident Trump touched off a firestorm Wednesday after tweeting that he wants to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military in any capacity -- citing advice from his "generals" and medical costs.
In a series of tweets, he wrote:
"After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow...Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming..victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you."
The president’s tweets came only a few weeks after Defense Secretary James Mattis said he would give military chiefs another six months to conduct a review to determine if allowing transgender individuals to enlist in the armed services will affect the “readiness or lethality” of the force. The deadline for that review was Dec. 1, 2017.
“This is worse than don’t ask don’t tell, this is don’t serve, don’t serve,” The National Center for Transgender Equality said in a written statement. “This is an appalling attack on our service members; it is about bigotry rather than military readiness, reason or science. It is indefensible and cannot stand.”
The Family Research Council praised Trump’s action.
“I applaud President Trump for keeping his promise to return to military priorities – and not continue the social experimentation of the Obama era that has crippled our nation’s military,” FRC President Tony Perkins said in a statement. “The military can now focus its efforts on preparing to fight and win wars rather than being used to advance the Obama social agenda.”
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said "we don't need to be experimenting with the military. Plus there's no reason to take on that kind of financial burden."
But Trump himself tweeted during the campaign season that he would "fight" for the LGBTQ community while his opponent "Hillary (Clinton) brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs."
During his confirmation hearing in January, Mattis was asked whether he believed that allowing LGBT Americans to serve in the military or women in combat would undermine the military’s lethality.
“Frankly, senator, I’ve never cared much about two consenting adults and who they go to bed with,” Mattis testified.
Abbie Goldberg, professor of psychology at Clark University who has researched and written about the LGBTQ community, told Fox News “no one wins under Trump’s plan.”
“Some people will not serve, which is a loss to the military and the country,” Goldberg said. “Others will serve, but not openly, and thus they will be at risk for discharge or verbal, physical and sexual abuse.”
The Pentagon has refused to release any data on the number of transgender troops currently serving. A RAND study found that there are between 2,500 and 7,000 transgender service members in the active-duty military, and another 1,500 to 4,000 in the reserves.
The study also found that allowing transgender people to serve in the military would have a "minimal impact" on the health care costs.
The Pentagon announced it would “continue to work closely with the White House to address the new guidance provided by the commander in chief on transgender individuals serving in the military.”
“We will provide revised guidance to the Department in the near future,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said in statement.
Trump’s announcement comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill debate the current practice of requiring the Pentagon to pay for medical treatment for gender transition.
Missouri Republican Rep. Vicky Hartzler offered an amendment that would prohibit the Pentagon from spending money on transition surgeries or hormone therapy. Her amendment was narrowly defeated earlier this month.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Trump’s decision a “cruel and arbitrary decision designed to humiliate transgender Americans.”
“On this very day in 1948, President Harry Truman signed the executive order desegregating the U.S. military. Sixty-nine years later, President Trump has chosen this day to unleash a vile and hateful agenda that will blindside thousands of patriotic Americans already serving with honor and bravery,” she said.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,slammed the sudden announcement and said anyone who is fit to serve in the military should be allowed to do so.
“The president’s tweet this morning regarding transgender Americans in the military is yet another example of why major policy announcements should not be made via Twitter,” McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said.
Transgender service members have been able to serve openly in the military since last year, when former Defense Secretary Ash Carter ended the ban. Since Oct. 1, transgender troops have been able to receive medical care and start formally changing their gender identifications in the Pentagon's personnel system.
But Carter also gave the services until July 1 to develop policies to allow people already identifying as transgender to newly join the military, if they meet physical, medical and other standards, and have been stable in their identified genders for 18 months.
"I continue to maintain that what matters in choosing those who serve is that they are best qualified," Carter said in a statement. "To choose service members on other grounds than military qualifications is social policy and has no place in our military. There are already transgender individuals who are serving capably and honorably. This action would also send the wrong signal to a younger generation thinking about military service.”
Key concerns include whether currently enlisted troops have had medical or other issues that cause delays or problems with their ability to deploy or meet physical or other standards for their jobs. Military leaders also wanted to review how transgender troops are treated, if they're discriminated against or if they have had disciplinary problems, the officials said. They were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations publicly, so spoke on condition of anonymity.
This was announced close to two weeks ago. And I'm still waiting for a clear explanation why it was said. It appears to be a statement by Trump, but with no actual executive order to initiate it. And seems to have been completely ignored by the military leadership. But as Trump announced it, he plainly states that it was the military leadership who requested it. A few of my own speculations: THEORY 1: It could be Trump's own mistake, that he wanted to do, and he possibly lied to say the military asked for it. And it blew up in his face, that he floated it as a tweet, it didn't fly, and will therefore be ignored. But that doesn't really make sense, because (to name only two examples) as stated in his tweets above from over a year ago, and in his comments at the Republican convention nomination acceptance speech, he was, and has always been, supportive of gays. THEORY 2: Trump was set up, was told this was necessary and announced it as requested, and then (like Rod Rosenstein urging him to fire FBI director Comey to restore morale and public trust in the FBI) possibly was vilified by the very people who requested it. Although in the Rosenstein situation, there is a clear paper trail that Rosenstein urged it. There should be a similar paper trail if the military actually requested this. In any case, it stands out to me as the oddest and most inconsistent act by Trump as president. Equally so for both (1) being ignored by the military, and (2) ignored by the media, with no real curiosity to investigate the reason leading up to it, or whether or not it will ever even be attempted to implement.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,016 Likes: 31
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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And (3) being inconsistent with Trump's own longstanding friendliness toward gays, that extends back to way before he was a candidate.
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Joined: Jun 2003
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Fair Play! 15000+ posts
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Fair Play! 15000+ posts
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 15,797 Likes: 40 |
It wasn't ignored but with Trump one story quickly replaces another. And what exactly is the military supposed to do with a tweet? And actions speak louder than the bs Trump says. His actions were as usual irresponsible and not even what was being asked for. One side was asking to make it so the military wouldn't have to pay for surgeries and he took it further.
Fair play!
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,016 Likes: 31
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
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Precisely my point. It's odd because it was not an executive order. And no follow-up by anyone on why he issued it, and why he issued it in contradiction of his otherwise very friendly attitude toward gays.
He said the military requested it, and then the military itself slapped him down regarding the Twitter post to ban transgenders.
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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 648
500+ posts
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500+ posts
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Transgenderism has been a disqualifying condition for a while. It was only last year that they reversed on that. The ban was originally based on the view of transgenderism being seen as a mental illness, and lumped in with a bunch of other potentially medically disqualifying conditions, such as flat feet, diabetes, heart issues, dental deficiencies, being too tall, too short, too fat, etc.
I'm all for every able-bodied person being able to serve, but the minute a TG person decides they want to pull the trigger on gender reassignment, they're likely looking at several years of therapy, hormone treatments, the surgery itself, and so on... which means that person is non-deployable. When you're non-deployable, you're essentially useless for duty as far as the military is concerned and is a measurable statistic for unit readiness.
Any commander would probably tell you that the last thing you want is for a service member to come down on the nondeployable list when they run their reports. Hell, one time I got called to my commander's office because I'd just gone over a 6 month threshold for dental appointments, which got me on the nondeployable list. Now, it's one thing to be able to make up a dental appointment within a week of getting on that list... it's another to be sidelined for a sustained period of time due to an elective surgery.
I could give a shit about troops being "uncomfortable" with TGs in the service. If you're downrange in a fighting position bearing down against enemy forces, whether the person next to me is trans, gay, lesbian, bi or whatever is irrelevant so long as they're on my side and fit for duty. OTOH, if, in that same scenario, the person next to me starts having issues because they're coming to terms with their gender identity and wants to run off to talk to their therapist, well, I'm going to have resverations about their effectiveness.
Mission readiness is priority to the military, not the 'social experiment' bullshit. Gays have been in the service since forever, regardless of DADT and other regs against their service which have been lifted. Hell, in my unit, everyone knew who was gay and who wasn't and it never caused a stir. (Of course, I wasn't infantry or combat arms... MI tends to get a different 'demographic' and was a bit more 'lax' for lack of better term). And the lesbians always had the best barracks parties.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,016 Likes: 31
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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OP
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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Posts: 25,016 Likes: 31 |
If you're downrange in a fighting position bearing down against enemy forces, whether the person next to me is trans, gay, lesbian, bi or whatever is irrelevant so long as they're on my side and fit for duty. OTOH, if, in that same scenario, the person next to me starts having issues because they're coming to terms with their gender identity and wants to run off to talk to their therapist, well, I'm going to have reseverations about their effectiveness. I can certainly see transgenderism in military personnel manifesting a mental instability that would put in question their reliability as soldiers. Certainly that instability came into play regarding the prosecuted offenses of Bradley Manning. When I first heard Trump say his officers requested the ban, I believed it, with the Manning case in mind.
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