The case of Leyland v. Orr was argued and decided in 1987 by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Jane Anne Leyland was a reserve officer who had served in the Air Force and Air Force Reserves for a total of 15 years, and shortly after being selected for lieutenant colonel she had a vaginoplasty to conform her genitalia shape to female norms. At a medical board, Leyland was determined to be “psychologically unsuitable and physically unfit because of transsexualism and completion of sex change surgery,” and then discharged. Leyland challenged her discharge in the courts.
The district court had granted summary judgment for the Air Force, so Leyland appealed to the Ninth Circuit. It was in the Appeals Court ruling that one now can read what Dr. Donald Novicki stated about transsexual people serving in the military. The Appeals Court ruling stated:
“Dr. Novicki, urology consultant to the Air Force surgeon general, stated that the known and potential long-term effects of a sex change constitute a risk significant enough to restrict the individual’s performance of Air Force duties, especially when remote geographic assignments are involved. Dr. Novicki stated that assigning such a person to such places ‘would be equivalent to placing an individual with known coronary artery disease in a remote location without readily available coronary care.’ He further stated ‘[i]t has been and remains the policy of the surgeon general that such abnormalities be identified and that such individuals be denied entry or continued active duty for their benefit and for the benefit of the United States Air Force.’”
Further in the ruling, the court stated:
[S]ome conditions (loss of a limb, for example) always require discharge because the particular condition invariably impairs the evaluee’s ability to perform. Dr. Novicki declared without dispute that transsexualism in which sex reassignment surgery has occurred is such a condition, because all evaluees in this category have potential health problems which may require medical care and maintenance not available at all potential places of assignment.
We now allow those with amputated limbs to continue to serve in the military. We now allow soldiers and sailors to deploy in the military services to take their required medications with them.
In the May/June issue of OutServe Magazine, columnist Brynn Tannehill has profiled Nicole Shounder. She is a transgender civilian mariner with a paygrade equivalent to that of a lieutenant commander. She recently returned from deployment onboard the Afloat Forward Staging Base (Interim) USS Ponce (AFSB(I) 15) without incident – the ship is forward deployed to the Mideast. Shounder is a nurse who actually takes care of people with significant medical conditions and problems.
Rachel Bolyard is a transgender, civilian, military contractor who began her transition in theater. According to OutServe Magazine, in 2010 she had facial feminization surgery, and in 2011 she had genital reconstruction surgery. To quote Brynn Tannehill’s column on Bolyard, “Every three months she gets a check-up and a refill on her prescriptions. They’re stable even at high temperatures like the ones encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan, and she keeps a 2 month ‘back up’ supply in case her access to her normal refills is interrupted for some reason.”
What Dr. Novicki said in 1987 about the possibility of transsexual servicemembers like Jane Anne Leyland deploying in remote locations seems as outdated a point of view as ones in 1987 on lesbian, gay and bisexual servicemembers in the military at all; as outdated as disallowing women from serving in combat.
Times have changed. Perhaps it’s drawing closer to a time when there will be a transgender Col. Vicki.
Interesting. There is a big difference between a post-op transsexual possibly serving in the military, and someone who is “transgender” doing the same. Most transgender people have no desire to actually change their sex. One has to wonder how someone like Sandeen expects the military to deal with this. It would be, to say the least, highly disruptive. While it might be one thing to have a crossdresser, who restricts his behavior to his private time and who does not engage in his, uh, hobby, on base, and another thing to have a MTF soldier who is pre-op housed with females, or with males for that matter. Someone who is post-op, who is able to assimilate as a female (or a male in the case of an FTM) who does not insist on being “out, loud, and proud” would be one thing, someone who is pre-op, or non-op, who demands to be allowed to impose his condition on his/her fellow service members could be highly disruptive.
There was a time when a black person in the service was considered “disruptive” “less than” incapable of serving due to intellectual disparities” .
As for ” ‘most Transgender people do not want to change their sex” not sure where this statement is peer reviewed and documented since there is only a, minimal at best, scientific and scholarly representation of either MTF or FTM populations of any age, race, ethnicity, religious creed, or sequel orientation.
What can be said is that many Transgender individual cannot afford Gender Reassignment Surgery (GRS) because of cost, time from work, under employment, unemployment, workplace discrimination, and too few American surgeons who specialize in GRS procedures. Several surveys have documented FTM’s as commenting ” going without “lower surgery” because the procedures available are costly, require multiple surgeries over time with high risk for infection, fistulas and adhesions during the process. Less expensive procedures render more or less a transplanted autograft of rolled up skin resembling a penis with no ureter connection and slight sensate feeling. This is not even satisfactory. A penis with hydraulic pump to assimilate an erect penis, scrotum,ureter extension hook up, and silicone testicles runs $250,000.00 at the University of Chicago. Hardly affordable to the average American. An MTF will generally have Facial Feminization Surgery and possible Breast Augmentation in order to Express a more authentic self. An FTM will seek out Chest surgery and have breast removed and a masculine chest shaped. Is these are the only surgeries available to individuals – this degree of Post Op doesn’t make them any less a woman or man by not having lower surgery. And just like transitioning on the job at any other corporate setting.. The disruption is often times brought on by those who cannot deal with difference, are threatened by their own self loathing or evangelizing their religiosity. And by the way- in theaters of resent and present war deployment- soldiers are housed in mixed gender billets. And that was though to be disruptive in different times. Perhaps we should be more concerned acute the resilience of Transgender peoples and their clear duty to serve their country or perhaps aging education about Transgender peoples before judging their possible disruptive powers.