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| Technical Sergeant Christopher Muncy/U.S. Air Force |
Transgender individuals continue to possess all of the rights of their fellow citizens. But there is no ‘right’ to serve in the military.
President Trump has just signed an executive order prohibiting taxpayer-funded accommodations for trans-identifying people in the military. As was the case during Trump’s first term, his action is being portrayed as a setback for civil rights. It is no such thing. For one thing, it violates no one’s “rights.” Transgenders continue to possess all of the rights of their fellow citizens, but there is no “right” to serve in the military. The military rejects many people based on physical and psychological conditions.
And indeed, despite claims by transgender advocates, it does not actually “ban” service by transgenders. It merely prohibits radical medical procedures that adversely affect the readiness of the force. According to the New York Post, these include hormone replacement drugs, cosmetic genital surgery, cosmetic breast removal, and mixed-sex housing.
It should be recognized that we are not discussing changing a long-standing policy. Opening service to transgenders was an executive decision made during the last year of the Obama administration and, after having been reversed during Trump’s first term, again at the beginning of Biden’s term. Congress has never held hearings on the issue. The reversal of the Obama-Biden policy represents nothing but a return to the status quo ante.
Liberal activists insist on treating transgender military service as the latest milestone on the road to complete social justice, one that stretches from the integration of African-Americans into the military, to women in combat, to the present. That is simply wrong. Rather, it is — or should be — an issue of military effectiveness. Did the Obama-Biden transgender policy increase the lethality of the force? There is no evidence that it did. Quite the contrary.
As noted above, the Trump policy does not ban transgenders from the military. But there are perfectly good reasons to do so. People who identify as transgender suffer a host of mental health and social problems — including anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and substance abuse — at higher rates than the general population.
For instance, a 2015 National Center for Transgender Equality study found that 53 percent of transgender respondents aged 18 to 25 reported “experiencing current serious psychological distress (compared to 10 percent of the general population) . . . Forty percent of respondents have attempted suicide at some point in their life, compared to 4.6 percent of the U.S. population. Forty-eight percent of respondents have seriously thought about killing themselves in the past year, compared to 4 percent of the U.S. population, and 82 percent have had serious thoughts about killing themselves at some point in their life . . . 29 percent of respondents reported illicit drug use, marijuana consumption, and/or nonmedical prescription drug use in the past month, nearly three times the rate in the U.S. population (10 percent). . . .”
Meanwhile, transgender veterans have been found to have the highest rates of mental-health problems in the United States. A 2016 study found that 90 percent of military members who identify as transgender were diagnosed with at least one mental-health disorder, and almost 50 percent were hospitalized after attempting or considering suicide. --->READ MORE HERE (or HERE)
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, and to ensure the readiness and effectiveness of our Armed Forces, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose. The United States military has a clear mission: to protect the American people and our homeland as the world’s most lethal and effective fighting force. Success in this existential mission requires a singular focus on developing the requisite warrior ethos, and the pursuit of military excellence cannot be diluted to accommodate political agendas or other ideologies harmful to unit cohesion.
Recently, however, the Armed Forces have been afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists unconcerned with the requirements of military service like physical and mental health, selflessness, and unit cohesion. Longstanding Department of Defense (DoD) policy (DoD Instruction (DoDI) 6130.03) provides that it is the policy of the DoD to ensure that service members are “[f]ree of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.” As a result, many mental and physical health conditions are incompatible with active duty, from conditions that require substantial medication or medical treatment to bipolar and related disorders, eating disorders, suicidality, and prior psychiatric hospitalization.
Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false “gender identity” divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. 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.
For the sake of our Nation and the patriotic Americans who volunteer to serve it, military service must be reserved for those mentally and physically fit for duty. The Armed Forces must adhere to high mental and physical health standards to ensure our military can deploy, fight, and win, including in austere conditions and without the benefit of routine medical treatment or special provisions. --->READ MORE HERE
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