U.S. Military is Not a Petri Dish for Transgender Experiments

The United States military has one, single purpose: To destroy an enemy’s ability to wage war against the United States. Period. That’s it.

Among other things, this requires cohesive teamwork, focus, reliability and mental and emotional toughness. The presence of transgender individuals in military units undermines each of those requirements — overwrought transgender protestations notwithstanding.

Transgenders in a tight-knit military unit in a hot war obviously present a distraction in such a high stress environment. Are you supposed to call the hairy guy on patrol with you Sarah because he is transgender or transgendering? Obvious distraction and added stress.

Because the surgeries can put transgenders out of service for weeks and the hormone treatments affect them for months or even years, they can be unreliable to be ready when needed.

And mental toughness? Well if you are a man, but think you are actually a woman trapped in a man’s body, I feel badly for you, but that is not a sign of mental and emotional toughness. Until just 10 years ago it was considered a mental illness, a psychological illness called gender dysphoria and people suffering from it were treated to be cured. Further, it is a fact that transgendered Americans suffer disproportionately from mental illness, and are more prone to suicide, along with drug and alcohol abuse.

Under President Obama, who seemed to do everything possible to weaken the U.S. military’s ability to carry out its sole function, the military became one social justice experiment after another — each one eating away at the cohesiveness and teamwork and focus required. For him, striking down gender normatives seemed more important than putting our fighting men and women in the best position to carry out their sole function with the minimum of harm to themselves.

So Trump, after long consultations with his military leaders, tweeted Wednesday: “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.” Followed by: “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”

This is the correct position, even if it was done clunkily with a tweet before the policy could be ironed out.

Focusing the fighting force on fighting

President Trump has had Defense Secretary Jim Mattis researching the place of transgenders in the military, along with many other distractions for soldiers. A month ago, Mattis placed a six-month moratorium on recruiting transgenders into the military.

Trump’s policy fits with Mattis’s goal for the armed forces.

According to a memo obtained by Fox News, Mattis wants to eliminate extraneous military education and reinvigorate the armed services in the art of “warfighting.” The memo said this came after complaints by thousands of military members that their time is being wasted by hours of mandatory training, covering active shooters, sexual harassment, stress management and more.

In other words, it was transforming into a liberal playground of social issues.

Trump said throughout the campaign that he would listen to his generals, and his actions are in line with Mattis’ actions. Whether that happened in this case — that Trump acted on advice from his military leaders — we don’t know for sure, but we can be confident there will be leaks on the issue if those leaks can embarrass Trump.

Naturally, the LGBTQ folks spun into hysterical fits of outrage — it’s kind of their go-to response to everything — and the rapid reaction squad was to be found everywhere in the more-than-friendly mainstream media. (I was on an ABC panel the same evening as they switched their normal programming. The discussion was far apart, but quite civil. But it was also two gay/transgender activists and myself.)

The new policy also had its brave supporters in Congress — brave because gay activists can be relentless and go far beyond your basic activist.

U.S. Rep. Vicky Jo Hartzler, a Missouri Republican, tweeted: “President Trump’s decision today to rescind Obama’s transgender military policy has the best interests of the military in mind, and I thank him for taking this decisive action.”

Transgender policy is only one year old

It should be remembered that Obama did not change the policy on transgenders serving openly in the military until June 2016, when he had only a few months left in office. It was kind of a low act because he got to take credit for the new policy without having to deal with any fallout.

So Trump’s decision reverses a policy that was merely a year old.

In addition to aiding military preparedness, the policy is perhaps the beginning of the end of giving special medical privileges that contort the military for social experimentation and force everyone in the chain of command to walk on eggshells soas to not offend a tiny percentage of people who are confused about the reality of who they are.

None of this is to question the patriotism of transgendered Americans. Sure, there are going to be some who enlisted to get the surgeries and hormone treatments paid for by taxpayers, but many others serve for the sake of serving.

But the military is not a platform for social justice.

The transgender individual on the ABC panel with me said the military should be diverse, and look like the rest of the country. No. The military should fulfill its sole purpose of destroying the enemy’s ability to wage war against America.

And that’s it.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Trump’s transgender ban lets troops get back to business

I Was a Transgender Soldier. Gender Dysphoria Poses Real Problems for Military.

Bauer: Trump ‘did the right thing’

Trump was left with no middle ground on transgender issue

Drug and Alcohol Addiction in the LGBTQ Community

What’s the next thing President Trump should focus on to undo the damage done to the military by the Obama administration?

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act.

4 replies
  1. Jerilyn Franz
    Jerilyn Franz says:

    What a long way we have come to repeat EXACTLY the same arguments made against racial integration. And against women in the military. And against gay people serving.

    “The battle lines were drawn well before the first American boots hit the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. The black press, the NAACP, and other civil rights groups lobbied President Franklin D. Roosevelt and promoted their “Double V” campaign, calling for victory over fascism abroad and over discrimination at home.

    Government policymakers, however, had different priorities. While some among the military leadership conceded integration was desirable, they argued the timing would jeopardize efficiency, discipline and morale and “result in ultimate defeat.”

    Others said flatly that the U.S. armed forces was not a laboratory to conduct “social experiments” for which the country, as a whole, was not yet ready.

    “The policy of the War Department is not to intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same regimental organizations,” read, in part, a directive signed off on by President Roosevelt.”

    Reply
    • Dr. Rich Swier
      Dr. Rich Swier says:

      Gays and Transgender do not equate with being a person of color or ones sex. Skin color and sex are immutable. Gay and transgender are states of mind, ones that do change over time. As the author points out the role of our military is to fight not be a social experiment petri dish.

      The following are 10 “transgender” truths:

      There is no sound science behind the transgender agenda. No “expert” can point to any physiological markers, in any given case, proving that at issue is a biological phenomenon and not a purely psychological one.

      The “transgender” diagnosis is based purely on feelings relating to what’s called strong “cross-gender identification.” It’s no different from a cardiologist performing bypass surgery on a patient — without conducting any medical tests confirming heart disease’s presence — based solely on the person claiming he feels as if he has clogged arteries. Yet on this basis alone a psychiatrist may recommend that a child live as a member of the opposite sex and even, at some point, have body-rending “gender-reassignment surgery” (read: mutilation).

      Strong “cross-gender identification” is defined as “gender dysphoria.” There is also “species dysphoria” — the sense of being an animal stuck in a human body — and Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), the strong sense that a body part or parts don’t belong on/in one’s body (e.g., legs, eyes). All three disorders are defined by “feelings.” There’s no more proof that gender dysphoria has a biological basis than there is that species dysphoria or BIID does.

      Yet it wouldn’t matter if there were. Many abnormalities are inborn, such as Down syndrome, cleft palate, spina bifida and sickle-cell anemia. Anomalies are the exception proving the rule of normalcy; moreover, biology doesn’t determine morality.

      To re-engineer society (e.g., open bathrooms to the opposite sex) based on transgender claims is to subordinate the feelings of the vast majority of the population to the feelings of less than one percent of it.

      Proponents of transgender bathroom social engineering argue that such people have been using the opposite sex’s facilities for decades without raising objections. Yet this only proves that these individuals — who convincingly pass as the opposite sex — don’t need a law to gain access. Conclusion: The push to open bathrooms isn’t mainly about access; it’s about changing the way people think. Social engineering is the goal.

      Some of those pushing transgender bathroom social engineering are autogynephiliacs: Men who derive sexual pleasure from dressing as women. They can be confused with those genuinely gender dysphoric, despite having a different disorder. Such people likely constitute an inordinate percentage of those accessing the opposite-sex’s bathrooms and committing sexual abuse.

      Telling schoolchildren it’s normal to live as the opposite sex is child abuse. It’s as if we told them it’s normal to be species dysphoric and live as an animal: It warps their sense of reality.

      Allowing men claiming woman status into women’s athletic events, on the basis that “hormone-replacement therapy” eliminates any natural advantage, reflects ignorance. The intersex sports-performance gap is profound — the mile record for 15-year-old boys is better than the women’s world record. And boys’ running records surpass those for girls’ even among prepubescent children. Allowing “trans” men into women’s competitions is no different from permitting a 20-stone heavyweight to box as a lightweight because he identifies as a 135-pounder.

      “Gender” and “sex” aren’t synonymous. Even psychologists will tell you that “sex” is a biological distinction while “gender” is merely your perception of what you are. In reality, “gender” should only be applied to grammatical classifications (as it used to be). The quality of being male or female is properly known as “sex.”

      Reply
  2. Robert Alexander
    Robert Alexander says:

    I have direct personal experience with the abject failure of social experimentation in the miitary.

    I served five years on board an East Coast aircraft carrier, with my time ending in the 2000s; during this time I deployed to the Mediterranean thrice. I was a deck seaman, and by the time of my departure I advanced to the rank of second class petty officer. While my service is substantially different from that of the Marine- I honestly take my hat off to him and cheer him- I can directly attest to the dire (and very real) impacts of social engineering on the military at the division level, meaning at highly localized levels.

    By the time I arrived for duty, the policy of co-ed commands, especially with women serving with men aboard the “flat tops”, had been in effect since 1994. No doubt, the brass of our chain of command, both on board the ship and in Washington DC, lauded this program as a stunning success story of gender inclusion. However, this is what I directly observed:

    * Sexual encounters on board the ship in berthings and other darkened spaces (both in port, out to sea, and on deployment). And, on the third deployment, the captain did NOT hold these sailors, both men and women, accountable. The Love Boat was tolerated and tacitly encouraged.

    * Within a year of our second deployment, I personally knew over 30 female sailors who left our ship due to pregnancies. Over 30 SAILORS possessing a variety of skills that then had to be urgently replaced, right before a major deployment. Our division lost six (6) females within SIX MONTHS of the second deployment. Another left two days prior, and one was flown off the ship one (1) week later.

    And the thing is, there are no repercussions for skipping out on deployments for these sailors. No Page 13s, nothing- they get to avoid sea duty for up to a year. Is that acceptable? Is that a Fleet we want and deserve as a nation?

    * Unequal physical and body standards between men and women. Meaning, my lowest PT scores would amount to average, or even great, standards for most female Sailors.

    * Females sailors are granted 18 weeks of maternity leave (now lowered to 12 weeks since I left), whereas men only have 10 days.

    * Overall, I arrived to a Fleet where men and women are treated extraordinarily differently. In order to benefit women, men were given the short end of the stick. Some equality, eh! This is not a strong culture for the military. This modern military would not have survived one month during World War Two. Camaraderie is dead, except for the bastions of the Special Forces.

    Let me be absolutely clear: I am NOT stating that women should be booted from the service and denied entry into the military henceforth. Women have served honorably for decades in this nation’s military. What I am saying is that men and women should NEVER serve together, especially not in forward deployed bases and sea going ships. The temptation for sexual fraternization, sexual encounters, flirting, favoritism, and all other absolutely inappropriate behavior far outweighs the need for military units to be morphed into Boys and Girls Clubs.

    In order to restore good order and discipline, we need to return to gender separate commands. To detractors of this idea, I say that women have proven themselves completely capable of holding their own and leading their own commands. So, they don’t need men to succeed in this modern military.

    Rod, I was hoping to honorably serve our nation for 20 years plus. But in this era of rampant political correctness, I could not fulfill this objective. The social engineers are out to completely emasculate the mighty Armed Forces of the United States. Overall, these radical ideologues have been successful. In terms of the Navy, the final objective of their demented social plans is to dismantle the strength of the U.S. Navy Seals, the last bastion of of traditional camaraderie and masculinity within the Fleet. The traditions and identity of the SEALs drive these ideologues completely insane. What is hindering them is a promise to not “lower the standards,” as the vast majority of these brave MEN do not wish for their lives to be carelessly destroyed because of sophomoric social policies.

    However, lowering standards is the goal. Ray Mabus, political appointee and Secretary of the Navy, said that the SEALS should bring women into their ranks under, get this, FAIR standards. “Fair standards” is obvious code for lowered standards. The social engineers will not be satiated until the SEALS resemble a transgendered, half male, half female multicultural college team.

    Does the Navy have a fleet of warships, or is it a fleet of fertility clinics at sea? Are we the mighty Navy, or Match.com Afloat?

    Find the article here: http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/careers/navy/2015/05/27/navy-secretary-ray-mabus-women-female-seal-navy-combat-exclusion/27653965/

    Reply

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