Trump Live Updates: US To Sign Orders Banning Transgender Service Members, Gutting DEI
President Donald Trump is set to sign three executive orders on Monday involving the U.S. military, including banning transgender service members, eliminating military DEI programs, and reinstating service members discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.
You're viewing a single thread.
Have they ever offered any cooked-up rationale for this? Or does everyone understand and admit that this comes from nothing but irrational hatred?
The rationale I was told was for battlefield risks. If they are on hormone treatments, there's a risk if they are unable to obtain those while deployed somewhere. Also similar to how the military handles diabetics.
No idea how reasonable or accurate that is. I'm not a doctor.
"But what if they get their periods in battle?"
So anti-vax soldiers with long-COVID are less of a risk!?
What about the risk for diabetic troops? Should we kick all of them out of the military because of the risk of not being able to obtain insulin while they're deployed?
Diabetes is generally disqualifying in the military. Whether it should be or not is beyond my expertise to make an informed opinion.
Yeah, Diabetes needs careful management. Even changing meds can fuck you up quickly. Hypo (and hyper) glycemia is no joke.
Okay, what about all other chronic health issues that people have to take regular medication for? Are you saying that not a single one of those people is in the military and if they are, they should be kicked out?
(Testosterone, incidentally, is something some cis men, even in the military, take regularly.)
The list of disqualifying factors is quite long.
Generally speaking if you develop a disqualifying factor you're going to be discharged. There are some exceptions and waivers for things like battlefield amputations or blindness. For those they might send you to a training unit or hell they might even keep you if you're especially hooah. Mostly you'll be kicked out if you aren't perfectly healthy.
At least that was my experience in the army.
I got diagnosed with EDS in boot camp (I dislocated my fingers and shoulder while doing pushups), they chose to not put it in my record and sent me back to my unit to complete my training. Though, that was the Navy, and we were at war at the time.
Okay, what about all other chronic health issues that people have to take regular medication for? Are you saying that not a single one of those people is in the military and if they are, they should be kicked out?
If you have chronic health issues you generally don't qualify to join in the first place. https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/613003_vol01.pdf?ver=B0uhh9e1k_MDTz4PuNU8Aw%3D%3D
I'm not saying anything. I'm telling you what the military does. I also alluded to you that I'm not qualified to make those decisions myself. Your beef is not with me.
It depends on the situation, but for the most part, people who have chronic or severe medical issues will be pulled from their unit until they recover; after which they'll return to the same or a similar unit.
If they aren't eventually deemed "fit for duty" their case is presented to a medical board, where they decide if the service member should be retained on active duty. If so, the board could put restrictions on types of duty or grant various reasonable accommodations to the service member. If not, they'll be medically discharged from active duty.
I only really have secondhand knowledge, because I never went through the process myself, but I lost some people to it. There are appeals processes and the like, and from my perspective it seemed like a fair way to go about it.
My brother got denied enlistment into the Air Force because he has a slight tremor in one hand. What makes you believe anyone with serious chronic health issues is going get in over him?
Because I'm stupid and I wish people would realize that other than constantly get angry at me about saying stupid things.
yes, that is exactly what happens and why.
The only rationale I've seen consistently is that it's expensive to care for trans people.
I was in and diagnosed with gender dysphoria within about a week of Trump's initial tweet saying he was banning trans people. For about 2 months there it was a bit up in the air whether or not I'd get discharged or not. Ultimately was grandfathered in.
It's not an issue of hormones being available in the field, you can be deployed with a years supply no problem. That said the way the policy worked is you can't start HRT while deployed. (Presumably because of the increased burden of regular blood draws earlier on) If you were seeking to transition you needed the approval of your commanding officer, and that could be denied only if you were deployable and hadn't deployed yet.
There was also the option in there for your CO to basically grant you a year to go to college or something while transitioning to generally make integration smoother, so you wouldn't be stuck dealing with second puberty and regular military service at the same time. Though I have no idea if anyone actually got that. I know at least on person who didn't, or didn't take it anyway.
There's a bunch more nuance, rules, and tricky ways people got fucked over by their commands myself included. But at the end of the day, it really caused basically no problems overall while it was an option. And frankly if you can drag a CPAP machine on deployment trans people are less of a logistical nightmare and shouldn't make the top 10 of medical issues that actually might warrant discharge.
Transgenders are different: under no circumstances can we put America's transgenders in danger. They are far too precious to risk in combat. Like for the sake of homosexuals 16 years ago, it has been the solemn oath of every man in uniform to lay down his life in defense of America's precious, precious transgenders.