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Standoff Between the President and the Military on Transgenderism
A few weeks ago, President Trump again threw the country into a tizzy by declaring a ban on transgender people in the military. Everyone was surprised, including James Mattis, Secretary of Defense. A number of factors seemed to contribute to Trump’s decision, including contradictory ones. I’d like to explore some of those here, and also explain the reasons why his decision may actually benefit not only the military, but this nation.
In studying the background for Trump’s decision, President Obama in 2011 repealed the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy but was silent regarding transgender members of the armed forces. Following that decision, however, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced that transgender people could openly serve in the military. He said:
We have transgender soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines — real patriotic Americans — who I know are being hurt by an outdated, confusing, inconsistent approach that’s contrary to our value of service and individual merit.
Implicit in his comments are the desires of individuals rather than the needs of the military.
Looking at these factors has raised a number of questions regarding the reasons for and impact of approving the acceptance of transgender members of the military.
First, although he had not consulted Defense Secretary Mattis, the President had consulted generals and military experts before he made his decision. I also believe that Trump’s not telling Mattis might have been purposeful: Gen. Mattis won’t be branded with supporting this decision, although he may need to answer for it later.
The second factor is that when Obama had Secretary Carter announce the acceptance of transgenderism, we have no way of knowing whether the military thought this was a smart decision or not. The military, after all, is subject to the decisions of the Commander-in-Chief, and officers may have assumed that the potential blowback for resisting wasn’t worth contesting a decision that was likely inevitable.
A third factor is that we have no idea how military personnel in general are responding to this decision. The military is not in the habit of consulting its personnel on these matters, nor should it be. The media report that personnel support the decision, but that is a meaningless assessment that has never been verified.
A fourth factor might be pushback from the military against Trump. Although he has spoken positively about the military, Pentagon officials expressed concerns that his decision might open them to lawsuits. Trump’s announcing the ban through Twitter rather than through the normal procedures probably didn’t sit well either.
Fifth, Secretary Carter had also ordered the 2016 Rand Report which estimated that the maximum cost of healthcare for transgender troops would be $8.4 million a year, less than 1 percent of annual spending on active duty health care. I would suggest that the resistance to approving the funding is more about moral concerns than just a political or legislative one.
Sixth, there are a number of reasons why originally pushing through the approval of transgender people in the military was a bad idea. David French, in his article in National Review shared reasons for reviewing the original transgender approval. Since a degree of mental well being is important for those in the military, he cites the statistics from the US Transgender Survey of 2015 (PDF):
Fifty-three percent (53%) of USTS respondents aged 18 to 25 reported experiencing current serious psychological distress [compared to 10% of the general population] … Forty percent (40%) of respondents have attempted suicide at some point in their life, compared to 4.6% in the U.S. population. Forty-eight percent (48%) of respondents have seriously thought about killing themselves in the past year, compared to 4% of the U.S. population, and 82% have had serious thoughts about killing themselves at some point in their life … 29% 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%)
He reminds us that transgender people may feel more accepted if they are part of the military, but he also points out that, particularly in the field, physical strength matters:
Here’s some basic science: Testosterone also causes development of a heavier and stronger skeleton in males and has a specific effect on shaping the male pelvis, adding greater strength for load-bearing tasks and enabling more efficient locomotion. It increases the size and function of their hearts and lungs and consequently males have 40% greater aerobic capacity, and higher endurance compared with females. Women’s smaller hearts require more blood to be pumped each minute at a given level of exertion because they have less hemoglobin in their blood to carry oxygen. These differences will put women at a distinct disadvantage in newly opened infantry jobs, where they will be expected to carry 100-pound packs routinely, or in armor jobs, where they will have to load 35-pound rounds again and again. Women in these roles will have to constantly work at a higher percentage of their maximal capacity to achieve the same performance as men. No training system can close the gap. That is absolutely right, and as political pressure increases, we will fling disproportionately unfit soldiers into the most stressful of jobs. But it’s not just individuals who suffer. The mission suffers. The nation suffers.
There is also growing evidence that the science of transgenderism is incomplete. The reasons people identify as transgender can range from ambivalence about their sexuality, to early pressures from people in their lives to acknowledge that since they like to participate in non-traditional activities (girls who like to wear overalls and roughhouse, and boys who like to dance), they are meant to live as the opposite gender. The list of ambiguities and inconsistencies of transgenderism is a long one.
We now wait to see if President Trump goes through the formal channels to enact the ban.
So we have on our hands another progressive agenda item with incomplete data being forced, not only on society, but on our men and women in the military, where lives are at risk. To comfort or satisfy the individual desires of a very small group, we once again bow to the god of political correctness. I’ll close with a quote by David French:
So, please, stop talking about individual rights. Stop talking about individual goals. The military has to make hard choices on the basis of odds, probabilities, and centuries of hard-earned experience. Our national existence — ultimately, our very civilization — depends on getting those answers right. And if there’s one thing that any person learns in war, “fairness” has absolutely nothing to do with the outcome. The battlefield is the most unjust place on earth.
[David French and Andrew Walker, author of God and the Transgender Debate discuss the transgender issue on Ricochet’s Liberty Files podcast.]
Published in Military
Does it? How? Most trans people understand their physical form very well. In a very general way they suggesting its more akin to physical problem then a mental one. I can see why one would want to do that. Its very clear many people here stigmatize mental illness far more greatly then physical aliments. I mean even I do its a cultural bias.
I would ignore you. Nor in this particular case is anyone asking for legislation, in fact they are asking for no action.
Shock value for who? This can be turned on its head. The only reason the right cares is because it has to do with sex and they are prudes. There certainly is the shock and prude factor but I don’t think that is a sufficient explanation.
Which makes me wonder why people get so defense about it. Chances are you will rarely meet one these people.
Not sure you are really being asked to do much of anything. There are silly cases which are being fought as of now, like those stupid pizza and wedding cake cases. Private institutions ought to have the right to refuse services. (Well mundane services things like pharmacies are best treated more like public institutions in terms of access).
And I am saying continue with that. Assess people as individuals. Just as they won’t place a diabetic in an infantry unit, I suspect they won’t place a trans person there either, also good chance they will be rejected at the medical stage do the medical complications of being a trans person. Which is fine you asses them as an individual and if they are found wanting everyone moves on. But not even allowing them the chance to prove their utility is not only unjust but stupid.
Hahaha! I see you have not met me.
Suffering from mental illness is not the same as hailing from a particular region. Although it’s something of a close call where California is concerned.
Liberals always try to take perfectly natural and normal human behavior and turn it into something bad. Being repelled by manifestations of mental illness isn’t “cultural bias.” It’s a normal human reaction that’s probably hard-wired. I do think you could accurately call it cultural, even though it’s universal to all cultures of the world, but the left just had to add that loaded word “bias” so we’ll feel ashamed.
It’s more of their usual attempts at social engineering, trying to nudge and shame others into believing as they do. Well that trick doesn’t work on me. I will stand up and say the emperor has no clothes. I feel empathy for mentally ill people, and I think we should be nice to them. But I won’t try to hide the fact that I’m creeped out by a man in lipstick and a dress, and if you’re brutally honest with yourself, you’ll admit you probably are too. Don’t worry. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you normal. Normal is a perfectly good word which we should use more often lately.
Correct. You can learn a lot about a person in an interview with questions about values, work history, work ethic, relationships, reliability, and so on.
Mitchell, the military is not a testing ground where people get to see if they can fit in or do the job.
I’m a cultural conservative. The culture and the filth they are trying to throw down out throats is what energizes me.
I feel the same way. Not because I’m a yokel or a prude. Because I know that a society where nothing is shocking anymore is a society in decay. This is something the liberals don’t understand. They look down their oh-so-hip noses at us and assume our attitudes come from unsophisticated prudishness. But that’s not it at all. They have a tiger by the tail and don’t even know it.
It would be better for us all if liberals understood, and maybe the rest of us understood also, that arguments are not taxi cabs. One can’t take them only as far as he wants and get out. They will be pushed to their logical and sometimes extreme conclusions, if not by the originator, then by someone else.
Those aren’t concepts, they are rights. They can be suppressed, but they are my rights nonetheless. (You have them too. Don’t hurt yourself, particularly with the 2nd amendment.)
Only after Labor Day.
The problem is that you have advanced the proposition that we should throw the military open to transexuals because … because … because something. Because that would be fair. (I’ve got bad news for you, cupcake. The world not only isn’t fair, it cannot be made so. Try to contain your bitter disappointment.) It will make the military better, or maybe almost as good, in some way that you seem to be unable to enunciate. It won’t cost us anything, or not a lot, and anyway F-35s cost a lot! And look! Squirrel!
My counter-proposition is that your proposition is fatuous nonsense.
The only way to test these competing propositions is to go ahead and do it. Yet since I think and you feel, I’m almost guaranteed to be right. (It’s a terrible burden. I bear up as best I can.)
Is use of “cupcake” derisive language, P? ;-) I think we’re all getting a bit frustrated over repeatedly seeming to share the same arguments. I’ll stay with y’all until you finish, but does anyone have something new to add?
I think they know it, but they’ve fooled themselves into thinking it won’t eat them.
I thought of a worse one and cleaned it up.
I’ll go away now.
No, don’t! That wasn’t my intent. Your comments have been excellent, especially this last one. (No, not the going away.) Most importantly you noted one of my biggest concerns: that we might try out this experiment and find out after the fact that it’s too late to do anything about it.
I think I’m playing parent with those folks who’ve been wonderful participants on this post; I feel the temperature rising, and I sorta want to protect you guys, and that’s not my job. You’re all perfectly able to take care of yourselves without any help from me. Somehow I think that this OP may have represented all those areas where we are discounted, ridiculed and underappreciated. Still, I’ll mind my own business. Okay, I’ll shut up now.
Percival
Look I thought of writing something sarcastic in response again, but I think that just be digging the hole deeper for all of us. You are a smart person I sincerely mean that, but you may want to be a little more charitable. You did me, yourself and other members a disservice by ignoring and misrepresenting my position.
My position has been clear, assess the individual for the role. The fact you can’t bring your self to acknowledge that is disappointing, I am not saying agree with but at-least acknowledge it.
Now on to my faults. I will take some heat for using the term bigot, that seems to be where you started to go off the rails a little and go into what looks like anti-SJW mode, which is not completely unreasonable as this is the internet, I am defending trans people and I called someone a bigot. It was a bigoted statement made by someone else, but I could have and should have tackled that better.
So sincerely all the best to everyone.
That’s completey false and an admission of hypocrisy.
Ignoring is far different from accommodating. The trans activists want men with that delusion to be treated as women. They also want expensive elective surgeries and hormone treatments covered by medical insurance.
The equivalent response for those with the “I’m a unicorn” delusion would be a mad scientist fantasy like an inverse island of doctor Moreau. Sex reassignment surgeries should be seen in a similar way.
It’s well known that people suffering from such delusions often commit suicide. The mad scientist “treatments” done to them don’t improve that. This is a serious mental illness that doesn’t belong in the military.
Disagreement is not bigotry.
Apparently it is these days. Just ask the AntiFa idiots who seemingly have no idea what true fascism looks like. (Maybe they don’t have any mirrors at home)
I think so. I appreciate the contrary perspective @mitchellmessom has brought to this discussion, although I disagree with his premise that any individual’s military service ought to be contingent upon meeting the needs of the individual, rather the needs of the service.
More to the point, having seen first-hand the incredibly negative affects any form of intimate or erotic love between unit members has on combat effectiveness (heterosexual or homosexual) in both combat arms and combat support units (Mechanized Infantry, Transportation, and Chemical Corps), I am absolutely opposed to any advance in widening the scope of sexually-specific defined sets of Soldiers (or Sailors or Marines or Airmen). As a unit commander, I didn’t personally care how any one of my Soldiers might have defined their own sexual identity. Rather, I learned first hand that erotic sexual intimacy between any two (or more) of my Soldiers was always a detriment to combat effectiveness. Maybe I’m just a dinosaur, but I see the present official DoD policy of toleration and facilitation of transgender/transexual service members as simply another step towards broadening the negative effects of sexual behavior on combat efficacy.
Thanks, PH! I hadn’t thought specifically of that angle. Any policy or rule that suggests sexual issues in any context must be distracting. I’d like to think that we give every person in the military the advantages of good training, discipline and focus. Particularly at those times when lives are in danger. It just makes good sense.
My husband heard this morning that Trump will be providing something official to Mattis on the transgender issue. Stay tuned.
Bradley Manning
-Too many see the military as just another job. It isn’t. Service is a duty, not a right, and not everyone is suited for this duty. French is right because it is unwise to take in a segment with high suicide rates into a career with high PTSD rates. When I was a commander, I could use the chaplain to assess whether a member was suicidal, far more reliable method than sending them to white coats. With the war on religion, I doubt if commanders have that tool today.
-There are a limited number of slots and everyone who is enlisted and undeployable takes a spot from someone who would be deployable. Combat coded units are rated on their deployment status, including having sufficient people capable of deploying. Yes, pregnant women also create a problem, but it is temporary. I planned my births during staff tours so I never affected my units’ combat ready status.
-Homosexuals who behaved no differently than the rest and were work and mission oriented were quietly accepted. On the other hand, I had about 20 guys in a remote location and had to send one homosexual home for violating unit moral and the UCMJ . I have also seen females hurt morale by bedding married military men. They even hurt the standing of all female members in the eyes of the wives.
-“The military” when referring to decision makers is about as useful as “some say.” Many are civilians and political appointments. Servicemen is more accurate, and the naive young will poll differently than the more senior officers and NCOs who are responsible for the mission success. What they say in public, if anything, might also be different than what they think, since thoughts are now a crime.
-RAND does more than crunch numbers. RAND folks often did great post exercise evaluations, weighing comments and mission results. I subscribe to their newsletter but do see a political spin to studies not commissioned by the military. Like global warming dollars, studies paid by leftie dollars looking to validate leftie assumptions, might indeed find leftie-desired responses.
Thank you SO MUCH for adding your perspective, @eherring! You’ve added to my education on these issues in a number of areas. Thank you for your service, too. ( I should have said this to @postmodernhoplite and all the other service members who have weighed in.
I heard that Trump is indeed putting it in writing and making this policy change official. Clearly he read my comment and agreed with it :)
I just hope the next policy change of this level isn’t announced via twitter.
My military experience is limited to two years of ROTC (mandatory at my University) so I’m no expert, but I think you nailed it with this statement. Too many times I have heard Silicon Valley quarter-wits talk about the “right to serve”. Those comments almost always involved some special-interest group.