US executive order - relating to gender identity and the armed forces.

[FlowchartRequired]

Apologies if I missed this being discussed.

https://archive.ph/4zC91

"Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness
EXECUTIVE ORDER
January 27, 2025"

An extract:

"Recently, however, the Armed Forces have been afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists unconcerned with the requirements of military service like physical and mental health, selflessness, and unit cohesion. Longstanding Department of Defense (DoD) policy (DoD Instruction (DoDI) 6130.03) provides that it is the policy of the DoD to ensure that service members are “[f]ree of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.” As a result, many mental and physical health conditions are incompatible with active duty, from conditions that require substantial medication or medical treatment to bipolar and related disorders, eating disorders, suicidality, and prior psychiatric hospitalization.

Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false “gender identity” divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member."

If they're not allowed to use the wrong pronouns, or use the spaces of the opposite sex, or expect people to think they've changed sex, then I'm not sure what about them would even be considered 'trans'.

Well can you be more specific?

You highlighted the word truthful?

How is homosexuality not truthful? How would it be described as not truthful.

i'm not denying homophobia exists, and there are many ways to promote it. I just can't see what you're getting at in this particular order.

Their own inner subjective feeling about themselves. Which is as it should be.
Nobody else should have to perform for them.

just saw an interview with a trans woman who is a fighter pilot of over 15 years . You wouldn’t want to lose the experience and money invested which is what Trump is suggesting . That would be a lot of talent wasted .

Was this experience gained as a man and and now that they have transitioned are they still on active duty or have they excluded themself because of surgery/ medication?

Of course, Trump might do anything. But I can't see the connection. I can't see what in this executive order makes it inevitable or even likely that LGB people will be targeted.

Sorry, I think I should be more clear.

There are mental health issues that people are currently excluded from recruitment for already. Why do you think that Gender dsyphoria should be not on that list when it requires extensive treatment and has been said to be so debilitating that it requires people to treat the person as if their identity is a material reality?

There are named other reasons for not allowing the inclusion of someone who expects to be treated as if they are the opposite sex (or neither sex). One relates to language used.

Others are far more practical. Single sex spaces that include living and sleeping arrangements. And sports and physical testing aspects. Health professionals are another - if a female person can request a same sex health professional, this most definitely is an issue. These are just some.

And if exceptions are made for one group's philosophical belief about themselves, what other groups should be able to demand to have special treatment.

I'm thinking of Klinger in MASH.

He pretended he thought he was a woman, precisely in order to be discharged from the army!

Funnily enough, they didn't believe him, and he had to stay.

Now men aren't believed and they have to go

How times have changed!

In an ideal situation those cases would be considered in accordance with individual circumstances.

We all know this has always been a far from ideal situation. Refusing to employ trans people because they're trans is illegal in the UK - rightly so - and the above concessions would be made on the basis of ability to do that specific job, not trans status. 15 years ago, I'd have said that was very fair, and to a point, I still believe it fair. This comes with a caveat.

The MRA/TRA lobby has come after women with all guns blazing. Women have been doxed, threatened, 'cancelled', fired from upstanding jobs, denied our rightful achievements in sporting and business categories (the latter of which are at a premium anyway), had our medical language diluted, lost the right to our free choice of a female HCP for delicate procedures, our spaces co-opted, and our presence in those spaces viewed as (at best) as validation. Women (cf. Caroline Farrow, Sarah Phillimore) have been persecuted by the police for saying that sex matters; had their names listed on a database of wrongthinkers who have not been tried or convicted of any criminal offence. This lobby is turning us into the kind of society that has black lists of 'undesirable' people. This lobby has levelled the most disgusting, misogynistic language at women - the sort that became a short-lived taboo around the time of the 1990s - and even had it coopted into everyday NHS discourse and literature.

Had the vociferously aggressive MRAs not inserted themselves into trans rights activism and ruthlessly persecuted women in this manner, I'd have a lot more sympathy now.

Set within the above contexts? I'm all out of fucks.

I too was puzzling over the fighter pilot, and I would suspect that the experience could only have been gained as a man.

And what makes them transwomen?
Their own inner subjective feeling about themselves.

OK, many of us wouldn't mind this, if it stayed internal but it's when some aggressive transwomen insist that they are women and demand admission to women's spaces thus trampling over our rights that we object to.

And does that fighter pilot expect all personnel to use their preferred language? Do they do this under the threat of military legal action if someone doesn't?

If they are deployed, are they accommodated with the male pilots or the female pilots? Are there even any female pilots in that squadron?

Does that male pilot have to maintain their physical fitness at a male standard meaning they are at peak fitness, or at the female standard, meaning that they are not in the same zone of fitness as the other male pilots. Female pilots at their peak fitness are still female pilots at peak fitness. A male person who is not at peak fitness is getting special treatment.

There are many military people who have to cease their chosen career stream which the military has invested heavily in, due to health and other reasons. It may mean that that person has to make decisions. The military may choose to use that person in other project as a serving member or as an external contractor so that they don't lose that talent that they have invested in.

Well said.

there's a time for being fair, and then there's a time for just fuck the fuck off.

Different rules apply to civilian life of course but if you have gender dysphoria (for whatever reason), that is being classed as a psychiatric condition which disqualifies you along with other psychiatric conditions. I don't think it's unfair that a psychiatric condition affecting your perception of reality would disqualify you from joining the armed forces.

And if you just enjoy experimenting with gender expression, you can do that in your own time.

And what makes them transwomen?
Their own inner subjective feeling about themselves.

and this is where I get a bit of a snorting reaction.

If a man genuinely thought he was a woman, he would have severe mental health issues.

It would be like including someone who genuinely thought they were Napoleon, although they understood that lots of people can't see it, so you will keep calling them Private Smith, however wrong that makes you.

Gender dysphoria has become almost a meaningless condition now in how it is used by activists.

So, it has been downgraded to be no longer treated as being a mental health condition, yet still considered that gender affirming treatment for it is 'life saving'. Which is it?

SerafinasGoose

You say exactly what I think and expressed it so clearly.
Out of curiosity I looked up the definition of Gender in my Oxford Dictionary. Gender is defined as being a part of grammar. This version of my dictionary was revised in 1986, which ties in with your dates of gender ID coming about in the 1990.

A friend trying to argue the case with me, said that there had always been cross dressers. Yes, I am sure there were, but I doubt whether they even tried to argue that they had changed sex.

Datun

Well, yeah. As long as no demands are made on other people, anyone can think what they like about themselves. But as I said earlier, if they have a condition which affects their perception of reality, then they are not suitable for the military.

What I was getting at is that - in general life - you can have a belief without making everyone else act it out.

And FFS! I think that many many female military personnel can probably talk about the many many experiences they have had that negatively impacted their mental health. And I would feel safe in saying mostly at the hands of male people.

Yet, were female people even allowed to complain about having a male person in their showers, changing rooms, living spaces? Did anyone making blanket policies that prioritised gender over sex give a fuck about the additional mental health impacts on female people?

I mentioned gender dysphoria because it is specifically referenced in the EO:

It is the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity. This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.

I did not know any of this. 10 years ago??

It is .

Which is why I am confused by the expansion to sexual orientation. Unless Trump has publicly stated that he was going to exclude people based on that in an upcoming EO? And hasn't he only created EOs that he said he would?

Exactly.

I am beginning to think that the line of reasoning is more like

1. This is anti-trans
2. There is no LGB without the T

therefore

3. This is anti-LGB (or is laying the groundwork to be)

Edited for formatting

The famous inconsistencies in the 'logic' of TRAs.

Because there are people believe it or not, who still think homosexuality is a life-style choice, grounded in ill mental health and at odds with subjective truth about sexual orientation. THEIR subjective truth.

That's what I mean.

It isn't great therefore that this EO appeals to an arbitrary subjective truth as its' basis and not science.

Gender dysphoria may be a mental health issue,the EO doesn't clearly state why identifying as trans is definitively a MH issue(I do not know if the issue itself can be grounded in some genetic or neurological disorder) but if a soldier is largely getting on with it and just requests they be called by xyz name, wears makeup(🙄) and otherwise is respectful they ought not to be excluded.

I totally agree about the issues MRAs have caused and am angry about those. But not to the point that I'm so blind that I could involuntarily score a goal against my own team.

Third spaces in the military would ensure talent isn't wasted (I get that some don't want third spaces) I am not sure it matters that a male pilot is performing expertly at the peak female level as long as we're talking duties and service and not competition. What does it matter as far as their effectiveness at that level?

It isn't so straight forward. This is a broad stroke voter pleasing piece of legislation that deserved far more finesse.

Of course they didn't, in TRA land female people are only useful for their ends and then they are expendable.

"I am not sure it matters that a male pilot is performing expertly at the peak female level as long as we're talking duties and service and not competition. What does it matter as far as their effectiveness at that level?"

Fighter pilots, like formula 1 drivers, have to perform at peak fitness. This is not contested. It has nothing to do with competition. It has to everything to do with readiness for deployment.

"they be called by xyz name"

And with that do you think that all staff should refer to that person using correct sex pronouns and language, or preferred? That is not someone 'largely getting on with it'.

"Gender dysphoria may be a mental health issue,the EO doesn't clearly state why identifying as trans is definitively a MH issue(I do not know if the issue itself can be grounded in some genetic or neurological disorder)"

There is not any genetic or neurological disorder discovered. Do you mean in the future? What other future genetic or neurological disorder discoveries should we be creating policy for right now? Why do you believe that this one deserves special treatment on a very unlikely potential discovery?

"It isn't so straight forward."

I think you will find that it is. If you are borrowing future discoveries, and dismissing active readiness that is expected for a particular role because you don't understand the requirements of the role to support your position, that is a clear statement to me that it is pretty straight forward.

Are there other concerns that you have read about and not mentioned that you feel makes this issue not so straightforward? Maybe some one, not me, can explain it.