Times article re US military

It think the 15,000 is based on multiplying the percentage of people assumed to be trans by the total number of personal.

I'm amazed that as many as 15,000 miltary staff are assuming trans identities.

I think he'll get around to those things too. He's not even in office, yet.

It's not transphobic. It's applying the same rules that apply to every other person to trans people.

Anyone dependent on long term medication (in this case, cross sex hormones) is medically discharged.

If you think this is going to be done on some sort of logical, reasoned basis, I think you're a bit naive.

A good thing about Trump is that if he says he's going to do something he usually does. This time he's picked his cabinet to ensure that he will get things through without establishment objections. He will do this, and much else, by executive order.

Transgender people will be kicked out, full stop. Hesgeth will then move on to getting women out of combat roles.

Queer maths?

I think a decision based on inability to be deployed in war is fair, this should not be relevant for those with desk jobs.

But in terms of the effect on the military, note the raging hypocrisy. TRAs and men are continually referring to TW as a “tiny, tiny number” of people whose inclusion allegedly can’t affect women’s football/sport/safe spaces because there are so few of them. How come this number is not so tiny when calculating whether their absence endangers the West’s response to Putin?

Agreed.

As far as I can see, that's the essence of what several PPs are saying here.

Hopefully that's where this law will settle.

@Hoardasurass ok that's a valid point but a lot of people who identify as trans do not take ongoing medication.

So yes you are right that the policy about medication should be applied fairly. But trans people shouldn't be kicked out/rejected just for being trans.

The option to be unmedicated and trans in the armed forces should exist.

And combined with clarification that any time men and women are in separate spaces it goes by sex not gender.

Yes, I've read a fair bit on conscientious objectors in the past. As a pacifist (albeit an atheist) I would also have fallen in to this category if I had been a male conscripted in during WW1 or WW2. Not on religious grounds but ethically. I don't support killing in the name of peace. It's awful what happened to conscientious objectors and how they were framed as traitors as well as killed.

However, anyone who signs up voluntarily to join the forces, it's a pre-requisite that they need to follow orders, even if that goes against their own values. They need to be prepared to do that. If not, they either shouldn't join or should face the consequences of whatever process handles this (hopefully nobody gets killed these days). This should apply equally to any personally held belief: if someone's religion stops them from killing an enemy or someone's self-identified gender (where it differs from their sex) stops them from using the facilities that are provided for them (those for their sex or potentially a third space option) then the same applies. Or at least it should.

If Trump's policy is about making sure anyone with a trans identity has to meet the same standards as everyone else for medical fitness and management of personal beliefs versus the rules within the forces, fair enough. If it's a transphobic witch hunt, no thank you. On a positive note, it's going to get people talking about the actual issues instead of shutting it all down as "too complicated" and "only impacting a marginalised minority".

Ha! Boners for peace would be great.

I guess it's a variation of yogic flying and transcendental meditation.

Perhaps all the US military personnel from Málaga Airport could create a political party, centred around this peace-making approach.

And before anyone dismisses that as madness, here's the Natural Law party proposing a similar practice (albeit by harnessing the power of bouncing on their knees rather than the power of boners) in the UK:

There are probably plenty of military jobs that are not front line that require people who are on daily medication. This should be no different. The rules for fitness for active service should not change irrespective of beliefs on gender identity for people who believe in that concept. I think Biden was as crazy in the other direction as Trump will be in his.

But at the end of the day GI is a left problem/ideology/belief system in the US. It is more complex in Europe as both the ideology and the push back against it both came from the left.

If only men got a boner for world peace, think how different things could be with that kind of drive motivating them.

Totally. The sheer determination from so many men, in so many different areas, is mind blowing.

FFS. I almost want to applaud whoever got these rules in, they really nailed it for themselves. If only men got a boner for world peace, think how different things could be with that kind of drive motivating them.

Yes.

Nothing quite like forcing people to comply with your demands for being treated as the opposite sex, aka your philosophical belief, when the punishment can be very severe for them not doing so.

Abusers paradise.

Personally, I think it shows how far the ideology has become embedded in the national consciousness.

Men and women are joining the military in order to have sex change operations, because they believe they're the opposite sex, or they may have a fetish for impersonating the opposite sex.

The military is promising them that they will support them in this, and use taxpayer dollars for surgery and hormones to facilitate it.

I don't think most people are going to think this is what the military is for. Especially in the volatile environment we are currently in.

Thank you for this. I know two people who were rejected from the military for relatively trivial medical conditions.
Transgender people should accept that normal rules apply to them, as normal people, albeit transgender.

Well again, you'd have to decide what is meant by being trans. If a man genuinely thinks he's the opposite sex, and is crushed every time somebody refers to him as male, that's going to be an issue.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs, the loss of 15,000 from an Armed Forces of 2.86 million probably isn't the gift to Putin you seem to think it is.

Many trans people don’t bother with cross sex hormones so not sure saying this ban is because being trans is a medical condition is wholly true.

If they are being discharged on medical grounds, I see no problem.
If they are being discharged simply because they believe they are the opposite sex, that is wrong.
If service personnel who claim a special identity are deployed in regiments (or whatever the American military terminology is) according to their sex, and use the facilities of their sex, don't rely on drugs or request surgery, I can't see a problem with them staying on. Presumably they are still trans.

If being on medication means you are not deployed on frontline service, and if it's the case that numbers of new recruits claiming a special identity has increased since the military started a policy of funding hormones, surgery, etc, I wonder if the US government is trying to avoid a situation similar to the one faced by the Spanish military. In Spain, benefits aimed at increasing female participation have been taken up by males, most of whom were already in the armed forces. This has meant increased cost to the government without a commensurate increase in personnel.
In the case of the US military, they could be facing increased costs (from funding transition) without a commensurate increase in active personnel.

The armed forces probably offer decent pensions and benefits. Perhaps people are joining up with an eye to not only getting medication and surgery paid for, but also knowing they will not be exposed to the risks that frontline personnel will face. It's certainly possible.

Ahhh. But ! We know from the USAF study that those male people
were from then on expected to only meet the female fitness standards.

I assume on duties they would have also only ever be needed to meet female lifting requirements too. Ie the weight they could carry.

I assume though that your husband was already enlisted before being downgraded?

Plus, we're back to the thorny problem of who is transgender. If you've got AGPs wearing the female uniform it will be an issue in the military, as it is anywhere else.

I’d be interested to see if those on hormones maintain the level to pass the fitness tests. We’re always told how hormones weaken men so much that it’s a-OK for TW to compete against women in sports but at the same time not quite enough that they have to leave the military.