With the Defense Department’s recent decision to begin a process to lift its ban on open service for transgender troops, important progress, though at a snail’s pace, is coming to military foxholes and latrines.
It is an announcement certain to figure prominently among traditionally anti-LGBT politicians seeking the 2016 presidential nomination in the Republican Party. Despite medical evidence to the contrary, many politicians and transphobes consider transgender people “sick.”
At one point, society and a sizable segment of the medical community thought gays and lesbians “sick,” as in mentally ill. Similarly, society once held the same view the physically disabled were “sick” based on armchair psychology that any person with a disability must also be mentally ill. Popular culture images fed both long outdated views.
Today’s view is that those who claim others, like the transgendered, are “sick” are themselves “sick” with, to put it mildly, bias against the trans community. To put it more accurately and bluntly, they are sick with hate.
It’s no coincidence that the Defense Department’s plan to fully sexually modernize all branches of the military comes as public opinion for the transgender community is favorably influenced by Caitlyn Jenner’s graceful and passionate public transitioning. When Congress holds the inevitable hearings on lifting the transgender ban, I expect Olympic Gold Medalist Ms. Jenner will go to Washington to change political views on transgender military service.
In typical bureaucratic fashion, the Defense Department announced “creation of a working group” that will work over six months “to study the implications of lifting the ban,” Washington sources report. In truth, the department has been studying the issue for years and will hopefully not morph six months into six years.
The most fundamental implication of lifting the military’s transgender exclusion is that it fulfills the promise of our nation’s Founders that all are equal, and those who wish to wear the uniform to serve America’s cause are welcome to do so regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
According to a Defense Department statement, the working group will commence its work “with the presumption transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified.” This translates to a limited lifting of the transgender ban.
Why a limited lifting? Why partial equality? I expect answers to these questions will be as perverse as the questions themselves. “[E]xcept where objective, practical impediments are identified” should have ended with “if any.” Since it did not, this could mean a Go Slow Approach to transgender military service.
One part of the Defense announcement that was completely accurate dealt with further sexual modernization of the military. “The Defense Department’s current regulations regarding transgender service members are outdated and are causing uncertainty that distracts commanders from our core missions,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.
The long fight for open military service for gays and lesbians should have always included open transgender service. It is a shame on the Defense Department and political leaders that transgender soldiers have been treated as an undesirable class based on “sick” stereotypes for so long.
The U.S. military should celebrate openness, honesty, equality, and dignity for all troops. The outdated and unnecessary ban on open transgender military service should end in 2015.
Human Rights Advocate Jim Patterson is a writer, speaker, and lifelong diplomat for dignity for all people. In a remarkable life spanning the civil rights movement to today’s human rights struggles, he stands as a voice for the voiceless. A prolific writer, he documents history’s wrongs and the struggle for dignity to provide a roadmap to a more humane future. Learn more at www.HumanRightsIssues.com
At least it is happening, another win for the LGBTs.