Times article re US military

Thinking more about this new announcement, I am of the opinion that people who join an employer under certain criteria and fulfill these criteria, should be given a chance to adapt to new rules when something changes, before they are dismissed. They joined in good faith and also have undergone training and education for military roles, which is expensive for the military to do. Their roles would need to be refilled by new recruits who first have to be trained again, another cost.
So either they align with the new rules or, if that is not possible, should have a chance at a new role within the military, also to use their experience which they have gained so far. That would cause retraining costs, as above, though and costs for their replacement in the combat roles.

The gain for the military would be to have fewer people who need extra medication in safety-critical roles, and more headspace because no more tripping over pronouns, and more safety and dignity especially for women.

A side aspect is the role for soldiers returning from combat who are permanently injured / have PTSD and will not be active combattants anymore, as they should be offered non-deployment jobs, too, if they want them. So as others pointed out, there might not be enough jobs overall for everyone.

However, nominated defense secretary Hegseth also wants to remove women from combat roles. So we have to be careful of whether this is a two-step process. As mentioned by PP, women have fought for decades and probably in historic times, too, only often their contribution was swept under the carpet. I believe women in combat and command roles are also very important because they might place more emphasis on protecting the civilian population with their decisions, seeing as often women make up the majority of that civilian population in war times.

That's what I was thinking about, but we'd probably need to know more about the numbers. That anyone who requires daily medication could be moved to posts that are not in combat but surrounding services, and making a third gender bathroom / changing room available for trans people. But this is more likely on US ground than on bases and operations abroad, due to space constraints, too.

And for example people who need insulin or glasses cannot be pilots (in the military at least), but they can work in other roles with aircrafts - in the tower or in planning or as mechanics. However, those roles are on different education / training routes.
A broad shift from specific roles to non-combat places could require additional retraining or studying.

Oh FFS!

If it's primarily about saving tax payers' money (which would also fit with the ad campaign about Harris doing this in Californian prisons), it would make sense to create an exemption where "gender affirming care" was excluded as a payable treatment. If the pushback is that they would except suicide rates to go up unless this was funded, it logically does point towards this being a mental health issue and can be managed as such within existing protocols.

Why would he?
Can I just save you some time, and clarify that virtually nobody here thinks Trump is a women's rights champion or feminist ally or even gender critical. He is a sex realist, along with the vast majority of the Republican Party and of the population of Earth. That's it. That's all you need to understand that men are not, and can't become, women.

What he is doing regarding the military is in line with his they/them election ad.

Isn't Nancy Mace sorting out the womens spaces

I think the millions of dollars they are costing in ops and medication and the fact some are enlisting just to get it all done free is a bit of a worry to the American taxpayers

Probably because the armed forces are employed by the government, which he will head.

Bringing in laws about women's spaces (now what do you define that as? toilets in government buildings, toilets in buildings of private firms?) will be complex, especially with the federal system of government. I would imagine that most of those laws are state level unlike the military.

But he's decided to make this announcement about the military, why not make his first announcement about protecting women’s spaces?

No I understood perfectly but my point is, there isn’t enough of those ‘undeployable’ roles for all of the transgender people in the forces

MarketValveForks

If a trans person needs no medical accommodations then these medical arguments won't wash.
Surely you can see the potential problems with non-medical accommodations as well?

A woman who just wants to join the Army shouldn't be prevented just because she also feels she is the opposite sex, or at least not a woman. There's a footballer called Quinn who plays for Canada who made a big song and dance about being NB. In practice, they are just a female footballer, playing and training alongside other women footballers. No testosterone, obviously, as that would be a PED. They require special pronoun use, which probably wouldn't work in high stress situations in the Armed Forces but if you mean a situation like that (minus the pronoun requirements), it shouldn't be problematic for a female soldier who claims a special identity.

However third spaces, special pronouns, opposite sex unit...nah.

The military has to pay for their cross sex hormones and surgeries. It's why so many men take what are essentially support roles in the military. It's a deliberate pathway taken to get the government to pay for their transition.

And Trump and Vance have both been very clear about their intentions to end legal transition, end men in women's spaces and sports. And not only end childhood transition, but to potentially jail those who have pushed for it and destroyed kids' bodies.

If you're going to comment on it, maybe read a bit more than click bait.

But it’s not just about the ‘trans man’ or the ‘transwoman’. It has to be about the unit in particular, and so extrapolated to military as a whole. With the possible exception of undercover agents operating behind enemy lines, the functioning of individuals as a unit is key to their efficiency. Hence ‘esprit de corps’.

If a women is working in a unit as a woman, as long as she can perform her allocated tasks to an acceptable level, she can be a complete member of the unit. If the other members have to wrench reality out of kilter and remember to pretend she is a man, that’s a distraction. The same applies to transwomen.

in WW2, women were active members of partisan fighting groups, particularly in the Balkans. If you look at photographs, they are dressed similarly to the men and are carrying some fairly scary guns, but they are still clearly women. There was some evidence that they often ceased to menstruate in these circumstances.

What does "wants to be treated as a man" mean in this context?

There are considerations though for a female person with a transgender identity to join the military, in that they will need to be treated as a female person and not a male person.

Female people are not just small male people, of course.

But can we agree that a transman (someone who would in times past have been more likely to identify as a butch lesbian) who isn't on any cross sex hormones and doesn't require any ongoing medical or surgical treatment but just wants to be treated as a man, should have no additional barriers to serving in the armed forces? The restrictions against people who need ongoing medical treatment, particularly if they are joining the armed forces with a view to getting that treatment funded by the state in a country that doesn't have universal state healthcare, is a separate issue. If a trans person needs no medical accommodations then these medical arguments won't wash.

The new Chief of Defense staff isn't keen on women in combat roles, I believe. I don't know if he feels that way about all combat roles, or only some.

That being said, there aren't huge numbers, especially if you don't include the air force, where arguably the situation is different.

One of the arguments against it is that in a lot of combat scenarios, especially for the army or Marines, you are essentially saying there will be mixed sex accommodations, toilets, etc. With potentially little or no possibility of privacy.

There are also questions around things like access to contraceptive medications, and a lot of women in active combat roles use these to suppress menstruation. Menstruation itself can be a problem where there is no privacy or where it affects performance.

So I suppose they can stay in the Army if they stop pretending to be the opposite sex?

Doesn't sound too onerous.

This is likely to be completely impractical in so many scenarios.

It's tricky enough to get two spaces in some military settings and this has been one of the major reasons for restrictions in women's roles at times.

I just can't see the justification for a whole third set up, at great cost, in order to accommodate what is essentially a limiting medical condition.

Exactly! I don't think most people have ever seen the very long list of medications/health conditions that will keep a person from being accepted into the military. I have always been befuddled that trans folks who require daily meds and/or surgeries have been able to enlist when others who would equally like to serve their country cannot.

Excellent summary.

I'd have thought combat units might well be compromised by having females in them........certainly if we assume that males might change their behaviour in order to look out for or protect female colleagues.

The assumed number seems pretty random...because as we've seen over the years the rate of trans identification varies or even rises - according to the prevalence of gender ideology in schools, and other similar factors.

I doubt there will be any attempt to get women out of combat roles. Why would there be any attempt at that?