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US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has released an order banning most transgender troops from serving in the military except under “limited circumstances”, following up on his calls last year to ban transgender individuals from serving.
The White House said retaining troops with a history or diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” — those who may require substantial medical treatment — “presents considerable risk to military effectiveness and lethality”.
Trump surprised the Pentagon’s leadership in a 2017 tweet when he declared he would reverse an Obama-era plan to allow transgender individuals to serve openly.
His push for the ban has been blocked by several legal challenges, and four federal courts have ruled against the ban. The Pentagon responded by allowing those serving to stay in the military, and began allowing transgender individuals to enlist beginning 1 January.
“This new policy will enable the military to apply well-established mental and physical health standards — including those regarding the use of medical drugs — equally to all individuals who want to join and fight for the best military force the world has ever seen,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said yesterday.
The new policy was promptly assailed by congressional Democrats and civil rights groups. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi tweeted:
No one with the strength & bravery to serve in the U.S. military should be turned away because of who they are. This hateful ban is purpose-built to humiliate our brave transgender members of the military who serve with honor & dignity.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organisation, accused the Trump administration of pushing “anti-transgender prejudices onto the military.”
“There is simply no way to spin it, the Trump-Pence Administration is going all in on its discriminatory, unconstitutional and despicable ban on transgender troops,” said HRC President Chad Griffin.
Joshua Block, a senior staff lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union LGBT & HIV Project, said the policy “effectively coerces transgender people who wish to serve into choosing between their humanity and their country, and makes it clear that transgender service members are not welcome”.
Trump received recommendations from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in February for dealing with transgender individuals serving in the military. The White House said Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen agreed with the policy.
Earlier yesterday, Major David Eastburn, a Pentagon spokesman, said the announcement of a new policy would have no immediate practical effect on the military because the Pentagon is obliged to continue to recruit and retain transgender people in accordance with current law.
The issue has become mired in a complicated string of political statements, court decisions and policy reviews since Trump first stunned his administration with his tweets last July.
It’s unclear how much impact the court decisions will have on Trump’s decision. Activist groups had worried the administration could enact such strict enlistment and health care restrictions that it would become all but impossible for transgender troops to join or continue serving.
Under guidelines presented in December, the Pentagon could disqualify potential recruits with gender dysphoria, those with a history of medical treatments associated with gender transition and those who underwent reconstruction. Such recruits could be allowed in if a medical provider certified they’ve been clinically stable in the preferred sex for 18 months and are free of significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas.
Transgender individuals receiving hormone therapy must be stable on their medication for 18 months.
The requirements make it challenging for a transgender recruit to pass. But they mirror conditions laid out by President Barack Obama’s administration in 2016, when the Pentagon initially lifted its ban on transgender troops serving openly in the military.
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The military brass have no issue with trans folk in the military. He’s throwing some bits of red meat to his Christian base to deflect attention from his serial adultery.
@DJ François: focus on the topic and the reason for his action. He wouldn’t come up with this idea if issues and concerns are not raised within the military itself among transgender. Focus. Don’t deviate. A lot of politicians and people in power are adulterer that we just don’t heard off.
@DJ François: actually in his book Making Gay Ok author Robert Reilly highlighted and interesting statistic that when Barack Obama formally dissolved the US Military’s don’t ask don’t tell policy there was a big spike in the the number of military personal making complaints of sexual harassment i.e. men being approaching by other men for sex in showers etc, to say that Trump isn’t simply feeding into his red neck base when he tackles the issue of gender dysmorphia in the military.
@Aim Sotnas: ahem..Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate committee saying the military had no issues.
@Aim Sotnas: I think you should focus on your terrible English Composition,then go say a few prayers to the sky fairy that should sort it out for you!
Announces more gibberish. Anyone might think he’s trying to deflect from another atrocious week in the DT Whitehouse.
@Kevin OSullivan: well it works…
Coming from a man who never served a day in his life.
Out of curiosity , what percentage of the US military do transgender people make up does anybody know?
@Ray Farrell: US military stands at about 1.4 million people. Estimates on transgender people in the military range from 10-14k. So roughly 1%.
@Honeybadger197: cheers , thanks for info .
There are a couple of issues here; 1st If the person standing next to me could do their job I didn’t give a flying fiddlers who or what they were.
2nd the reverse is also true, If they can’t do the job they have no right to be there
3rd This whole “the best military force the world has ever seen” nonsense. Since the annexing of parts of Mexico the Americans have never won a foreign war, yet still seem to think of themselves as invincible.
@Francis Devenney: WW2 The War in the Pacific not ring any bells? The Gulf War’s mk 1 and 2? Panama, Grenada?
@Mick Jordan: WW2= the Russians, The War in the Pacific The Russians and Chinese (Japan was about to surrender to the Sino/Russians till America dropped the bomb) Gulf War’s are still going on.Panama and Grenada were not wars. America has a great history of rolling up late when all the heavy lifting has been done by others and claiming credit, Just look at Syria
@Francis Devenney: The Russians took very little part in the Pacific War. They only invaded Manchuria in 1945. The War in the Pacific was all but over at that stage. The Gulf War’s are still on going? Someone had better tell Kuwait they are still at War and Saddam, was he resurrected and put back in charge of Iraq? The current conflict in Iraq is an internal one against the democratic Iraqi government led by a jihadist terrorist group. Of which the Iraqi Government have requested US specialised assistance. Panama and Grenada were military conflicts which the US engaged in and won. Historical fact is historical fact. Attempting to re-write it to suit your own bias simply doesnt fly.
@Francis Devenney: Btw The Soviets invaded Manchuria on August 9th 1945 the US dropped the Bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th 1945.
To be fair, if you going through a transition, the army is hardly the best place to do it.
When’s he announcing the nan on smokers in the military for the exact same reasons?
@Dave O Keeffe: smokers cost 100k each for health issues?
@Billy Connelly: Smokers cost the US military $1.6 billion. https://www.armytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2017/08/26/anti-smoking-ad-calls-out-tobacco-companies-for-decades-old-military-marketing-tactics/
@Vigo the Carpathian: per year. Thanks for that, hadn’t read that article on it. Fascinating.
I’ve a lot of respect for trans people who go through a lot of crap, turmoil, and issues to be who they think they should have been from the outset.
I don’t think it serves anyone to throw out the term ‘mental health’ as that is loaded with insinuations. Negative thoughts and suicidal tendencies are high among this demographic though. This isn’t surprising given the physical and emotional changes they experience in transition.
I think it would make sense to not post transitioning people to active posts, given their instability and special circumstances.
True mostly poor people who are easily fed crap join so they can get education because their poor. You rarely see rich politician kids joining it.I’ve zero sympathy for anyone who joins and gets hurt as they knew the potential consequences of joining it.
@Din8rtd: With that grammar, you should have joined the army years ago!
@Aidan Mitchell:
Brave boy you wouldn’t be so brave if you met me in person.
@Din8rtd: why?
This bas—d is just mad .
Ridiculous, as Trump always is. However, I never understand why anyone would want to join the US military anyway, to fight on behalf of such an idiot.
@The Thinker: I think those who join wish to get a pay check and serve their country. Forgive me for saying but the bar is very low for the caliber of joinees. Id be more worried about their mental health than their sexuality or gender leaning.
@Billy Connelly: I meet lots of US soldiers while traveling abroad. They’re poor, young and scared. It’s a way out of a small town with high unemployment and no further educational options. They could barely mind themselves never mind given guns and sent off to high stress environments.
@john Appleseed: What a compelling study john.
Its informative to see all rational and logical posts exposing the fallacy of transgenderism for what it is, a mental disorder, have been removed by the Journal. Permitting readers to engage in logical coherent argument is not compatible with spreading fabricated liberal claptrap!
You would think they’d want every able bodied person in service… Anyway Trumps priorities are ridiculous.
I’ll file this under “who cares”.
US army is a murderous Imperial organisation…why give a f*** who it won’t let join the mass murdering?
@Dessie Deratta:
Exactly the people who join it are like machines as they step on a conveyor belt,where their brains are taken out and filled with shit.
Lucky people
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