#112: Transgender & the Military

I haven’t had enough to say about a topic to write an entire blog entry about it in quite a long time, or perhaps I’ve just been tired of feeling like I’m constantly arguing politics with people who refuse to hear any argument other than their own. (This is not directed toward reasonable people who do consider other sides of arguments before making up their minds on an issue.) Anyway, I encourage everyone to read this entry all the way through, regardless of what you believe on this issue, because I do believe that sometimes I bring up some great points. The least we can do is hear each other out, and then pick a side. I promise to do the same in the future.

Two days ago, President Donald J. Trump tweeted “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 must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and can not be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.” Please be advised that this tweet was submitted prematurely, and that no decision has officially been made on this matter. A formal request from the president for a military policy change has not been drafted, and joint chiefs at the Pentagon have released a statement to Americans that they will not make any modifications to military policies until they’re ordered to do so.

I have heard several arguments against allowing trans people to serve in the armed forces, so I’m going to start with Trump’s argument first. He says allowing trans people to serve in the military would cost a lot of extra money that the U.S. government does not have in order to pay for gender reassignment surgeries and hormone treatments for trans servicemen/women. I’d like to point out that trans people have served in the military for decades, and no one has ever asked for the military to pay for any transition surgeries or treatments. The military has never covered such costs and remains under no obligation to do so. Trans service members have never cost the military more money than cis service members for their healthcare. If it’s so important for us to save money and not start paying for transition surgeries for trans service members, then the president could allow trans people to serve, like they’ve been doing, but disallow them to receive government-funded transition surgeries and treatments. If I joined the military today and later asked for them to pay for my Botox injections & butt implants, do you think the military would oblige? No! So the military is under no obligation to offer any and all healthcare to its members, regardless of what the surgery is for. (I am not just using this an example as to why the president should not discriminate against trans soldiers solely because he doesn’t want to pay for their healthcare. I am not trying to insinuate that gender reassignment surgery is akin to Botox or butt implants.) There is a way to handle this situation without banning an entire group of people from serving in the military unnecessarily.

As the other part to my point here, I’d like to offer up some numbers. I said before that trans folks have been serving in the military for decades without costing the government any extra money. However, if we did decide to pay for their transition surgeries and treatments, it would only cost between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually, according to a Pentagon study. That’s about 0.13% of the annual U.S. military budget. Our military budget is immense, and taxpayers pay for a lot of unnecessary defense expenses as it is, but to put this into perspective, Trump’s visits to his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club will cost taxpayers $41 million this year, and his frequent trips to Mar-A-Lago have cost taxpayers at least $20 million so far. The fact that our First Lady, Melania, and Donald & Melania Trump’s son, Barron, live in New York, instead of the White House has cost taxpayers $25 million just since Trump was inaugurated. The military spends $84 million per year on Viagra and other erectile dysfunction medicines. And we spend billions upon billions of dollars on unnecessary illegal wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan in past couple of decades. Last year, the Pentagon estimated that our government wasted $125 billion of taxpayer money in just one year of spending. Trump could literally forgo a few weekend golf vacations to Mar-A-Lago to pay for transgender military personnel to receive gender reassignment surgeries and hormone treatments. He just doesn’t want to, because that’s how much brave soldiers who fight for his freedom every day mean to him.

And let the record show that I, personally, have no problem with the military paying for gender reassignment surgeries and hormone treatments. I would be more than willing to pay a little extra in tax money to help the people who fight for my freedom feel comfortable in their own bodies. However, I do not believe that we even need to raise taxes to cover such surgeries and treatments. I think we could easily adjust our priorities, which we have always needed to do anyway, and allocate tax funds that have already been collected to transgender military healthcare. Or, as I said before, Trump could forgo just a few golf vacations to Mar-A-Lago, and instead stay home and do his job, in order to pay for transgender military healthcare. Or if we could cut military waste by a fraction, we could easily afford gender reassignment surgeries and hormone treatments for military members who wish to receive such healthcare. This is really a very simple “issue,” which leads me to believe that this ban has absolutely nothing to do with not being able to afford transgender military healthcare.

I have also heard claims that trans folks should not be allowed to serve in the military, because transgender is a mental disorder, and mentally disabled people are not allowed to serve in the armed forces. First, transgender has never been officially recognized as a mental disorder, so whether this is true or not is simply a matter of opinion at this point. Without it being scientifically recognized as a mental disorder, the U.S. government can’t exactly cite that as a reason for disallowing trans people to serve in the military. It would be like me saying I believe all religious people are mentally ill, and therefore, no religious people should be allowed to serve in the military. (For the record, I am NOT saying that. This is just an example.) The U.S. government can’t just then ban all religious folks from serving in the military, just because my personal opinion is that religious folks are mentally ill. I mean, we used to think gay people and promiscuous women had mental disorders until we realized that and accepted that some people are just different from us, and that’s ok. But if it was a mental disorder, how does someone feeling like he/she was born in the wrong body make him/her not combat-ready? I mean, obviously anxiety disorders make a person not combat-ready, as well as schizophrenia, depression, and other mental disorders. But how does a person who does not dress or act according to his/her biological sex automatically make this person not combat-ready? (This is ignoring the fact that 80% of military jobs are non-combat positions, like doctors, nurses, secretaries who file paperwork, vehicle repairmen, and engineers. Why can’t trans folks work those military jobs?) All you really have to do, though, to realize that this policy is baseless, is to look back on the past decades in which trans military servicemen/women have served successfully. Plenty of trans folks have fought in wars, been reservists, and worked other non-combat military jobs without having any issues with their supposed “mental disorder.” If they have, so far, been successful, what makes anyone think they, all of a sudden, will stop being successful?

Some people say that their issue is not that they believe transgender is a mental disorder, but that trans folks are well known for having an increased tendency for depression, anxiety, and suicide, which absolutely are a mental issues. Yes, this is true. And does anyone know why? Transgender is frowned upon all over the world. Trans folks are judged, criticized, humiliated, bullied, discriminated against, harassed, abused, assaulted, raped, and murdered just for being different. Many don’t feel valued by their family or their leaders. I mean, their own president, in his last tweet about them, called them a “burden” and a “disruption.” If transgender was normalized and accepted, trans folks would likely not have as many issues as they collectively do. According to http://www.glaad.org/transgender/transfaq, a 2015 report from the National Center for Transgender Equality showed that 40% of transgender survey respondents reported attempting suicide at some point in their lives, which is nine times the overall attempted suicide rate in the U.S. This does not include folks who succeeded in their suicide attempts. Part of the reason trans suicide and attempted suicide rates are sky high is because of discrimination they are exposed to in the work force. Transgender folks are three times more likely to be unemployed than cis folks, with rates of trans people of color experiencing up to four times the cis unemployment rate. And 30% of respondents reported that they believe they were fired, denied a promotion, or experienced maltreatment in the workplace simply for being transgender in the 12 months preceding the survey. Thousands of military personnel identify as transgender. The military is their workplace. If this policy of disallowing trans folks to serve in the military goes into effect, trans folks will again be discriminated against in the workplace, which contributes to trans suicide and other mental illness rates. If we normalized transgender, these rates of mental illness would decline.

My argument for why trans folks should be allowed in the military, despite higher rates of suicide and other mental illness in trans people collectively is simple. The military already has a plethora of tests that everyone who desires to serve has to pass in order to join. These tests are designed to weed out those who are not physically fit enough or mentally stable enough to serve. If a trans person (just as a cis person) is depressed or has tendencies toward suicide, military tests will detect that, and that person will not be allowed to join. An entire group of people should not be banned from joining the military, just because a large percentage of people within that group have issues with mental illness. That would be like banning all white people from joining the military, because the Caucasian race exhibits a higher rate of sociopathy (think serial killers) than do other races. Ok, but that statistic doesn’t mean that all white folks are mentally unstable sociopaths. Military tests will weed out those who are not fit to serve, without discriminating against any particular group of people.

I totally understand not wanting to allow some currently transitioning trans folks into the military. Some transitions require all kinds of hormones and surgeries, which result in the patient taking a lot of down time and undergoing immense stress and emotional trials, although some folks who transition don’t actually undergo surgeries or treatments. But for those who do, this simply may not be conducive for military service, because no one who undergoes consecutive surgeries and hormone treatments, for any reason, whether they are trans or cis, is allowed to serve in the military during this time of their lives. However, many of Trump’s applauders in this decision don’t realize or think about the fact that trans folks are not always, at any given moment, undergoing transition, and transition entails something entirely different for each trans person. People can “transition” in many different ways. Most people who are not particularly well-read on transgender issues are under the impression that all transgender folks undergo gender reassignment surgery to replace their unwanted genitals with those which align with their gender identity. This is a surgery that some trans folks get, but it is far less common than people assume. Gender reassignment surgery is very costly, and from the survey I cited above, 29% of trans folks live in poverty, and even if a trans person does not live in poverty, many trans folks can not afford or do not want to pay for such expensive surgeries. Also, many people do not like the idea of going under the knife, particularly in such sensitive areas of the body. Even hormones are expensive and taxing on the body, so some trans folks don’t even take hormones. Trans folks can transition in other ways, such as growing their head and/or body hair out or cutting/shaving it, painting or not painting their fingernails & toenails, dressing as their preferred gender, and just generally living their lives as the gender of their choice. So, if a trans person does not intend to get a gender reassignment surgery or take hormones, or if the person has already transitioned or plans to start transitioning post-service, why shouldn’t that person be allowed to serve in the military? Check out this testimony from a transgender veteran who received a Bronze Star and a French National Defense Medal, the latter of which has not been awarded to a soldier since World War II, all while undergoing her non-detailed transition (meaning we don’t know exactly how she was transitioning or what her transition entailed, and it is really none of our business anyway): http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/07/trump-trans-military-ban-daily-show-trevor-noah-interview-veterans. This is an interview between political comedian and talk show host Trevor Noah and two transgender veterans, Jennifer Marie Long and Joey Whimple. It’s interesting to hear their point of view on this topic.

This is not just about equality, but I’d say that is the main reason for not discriminating against an entire group of people. Many people argue that the military does not change for you, and that military does not and should not care about what is fair, but rather what is effective. Well, a few decades ago, minorities and women weren’t allowed in the military, but there was an uproar, and the military changed for us. And typically, when it changes for us to make things more fair for everyone, it increases its effectiveness as well. Now that minorities and women are allowed in the military, we have more people fighting for our freedom. We have more man power (and woman power) during times of war, which makes our country more effective in our endeavors. Speaking of which, if the fight for equality is not convincing enough for you, then consider the fact that perhaps it is prudent to allow any reasonably eligible person to serve in the military, for selfish reasons. If this anti-trans policy is instated, that means thousands of military personnel will be let go from their jobs, and we will be down by thousands of fighters. Shouldn’t we want to keep our military personnel numbers high? I mean, will we have enough military personnel for us to win in the next war? Or will we have to re-instate the draft? These are things to consider.

This is kind of a personal thing, but I have also heard military personnel criticizing “civies,” or civilians, for having an opinion on the military, and not just letting Trump run our lives without saying something about it. This is like women telling men they are not allowed to have an opinion on abortion. The U.S. military affects everyone, service members and civies alike, and even if it didn’t, everyone is allowed to have an opinion. You can’t stop people from having an opinion. And shutting them down, because their opinions differ from yours, is pretty immature. Civies pay taxes, which pay the wages of military members (I realize that military members pay taxes, but so do civies), and they should be able to have an opinion as to how their money is used. But again, even if they didn’t pay military taxes, still everyone is afforded an opinion, as long as it is an educated opinion. In the age of technology, a person who is not in the military can still do enough research to learn about the military and politics, and form an educated opinion on the topic. Furthermore, it doesn’t really take a military member to be able to have compassion for other people who are different, or to fight for equality for all. You don’t have to listen to their opinions, nor do you have to agree with them, but you should respect the fact that they are allowed to have an opinion, especially if you want to be shown that same respect when you have an opinion on a group that you are not a part of. And, if anything, you don’t want to tell a civie that his/her opinion doesn’t matter, because why would you want them to think the military thinks so lowly of them? But if this is truly how you feel, then perhaps you don’t support the idea that Trump, a man who not only never served in the military but actually dodged the draft several times, should have the ability to make decisions for the military. And in fact, the Constitution doesn’t give the president the right to alone choose policies regarding the military. That responsibility remains on the U.S. Congress. Also, everyone could benefit from checking out the laws of this country as they pertain to civil rights and anti-discrimination. So even if the president and Congress are allowed to write military policies, they can only go so far depending on what is allowed by law, which discrimination against single specific groups is not.

It is my personal opinion that any person willing to fight in a war for my freedom, possibly give his/her life for me, work their bodies and minds tirelessly for their country, and give up time with their families to do their duty to their country is brave, selfless, and deserving of the utmost respect. We are showing no respect to trans military members with this policy. We are essentially firing them from their jobs, and the military might even dishonorably discharge them. Even if they do honorably discharge them, the reason for their discharge will be on their discharge documents for all future employers to see, essentially “outing” them. And from the statistics I provided above, many trans folks would rather keep their personal lives personal, if not just for privacy reasons, then so they won’t potentially not get hired for a job, just because they are trans. Furthermore, the rug is being lifted out from under transgender servicemen/women. It wasn’t long ago that the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the military was abolished, and LGBT troops were told they were allowed to “come out” and be who they are publicly while still maintaining their spots in the military. Now, they’ve all “come out” and can’t take that back in order to keep from getting kicked out. They could’ve stayed “in the closet” and kept their jobs, but they were assured that they could “come out,” so they were essentially tricked, and now they may lose their jobs because of it.

Republicans are usually the ones demanding respect and benefits for our past and present military members, but it seems that it’s mostly Republicans wanting to push this anti-trans policy. Furthermore, I have only seen, thus far, military members shouting that this policy is just. Military servicemen/women should be the loudest voices against this policy, as I would hope they wouldn’t turn their backs on their brothers and sisters. And this country and the president should not turn our backs on the brave men & women who are willing to die for our freedom, just because they are different.

If Trump, Republicans, & cis military members don’t want people to think that they are anti-trans, or that this policy is about prejudice, then perhaps they should draft a policy that specifically disallows certain trans folks from joining the military, rather than all of them. What I mean is, maybe they should draft a policy asserting that trans folks who are currently undergoing any kind of transition will not be allowed to serve at this current time in their lives, and only trans folks who are physically and mentally unfit to serve (i.e. those who have depression and/or tendencies toward suicide) will not be allowed to join the military, but those trans folks who are physically fit and mentally sound enough, and are not undergoing any kind of transition, will be allowed to serve in the military. And if they want to throw in there that the military will not pay for gender reassignment surgeries and/or hormone treatments, then by all means, throw that in there as well. But without some kind of scientific proof that all trans folks are mentally ill, and therefore, unfit for combat, and not fit for other non-combat military jobs as well, you can’t ban an entire group of people, regardless of their individual situations, from joining the military, or else you are being prejudiced and discriminatory.

Again, for those who actually read my blog entries all the way through, I thank you. Now, let’s go tell the president what we think of this bigotry. During his campaign, he promised to fight for the rights of the LGBT community. It’s time for him to follow through with that promise. And after trans military members have fought for us, I think we can fight for them this time. To all military personnel, whether cis or trans, thank you for your service.

President Trump's tweets from two days ago, in which he promised to disallow trans people to join the military.

 Trump promised to fight for the rights of the LGBT community. Make him uphold his promise.