President Donald Trump is expected to announce Thursday his formal bar on the military recruitment of people who wish to live as members of the opposite sex.
The written directive implements his tweeted July decision against hiring sex-switching recruits and reinforces his earlier legal rejection of the revolutionary transgender ideology.
That ideology claims that each person’s legal sex is determined by their so-called voluntary “gender identity,” not by their actual biology.
Trump’s formal rejection of former President Barack Obama’s pro-transgender policy will help Americans preserve the nation’s myriad laws and civic practices already built around the existence of the two equal, different and complementary sexes. Those laws and practices are under assault as progressive activists and well-funded lawyers try to persuade legislators and judges to impose the transgender ideology on states, cities, schools, and on every American adult and child.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
The White House memo … directs the Pentagon to deny admittance to transgender individuals and to stop spending on medical treatment regimens for those currently serving, according to U.S. officials familiar with the document …
[Defense Secretary James] Mattis under the new policy is expected to consider “deployability”—the ability to serve in a war zone, participate in exercises or live for months on a ship—as the primary legal means to decide whether to separate service members from the military, the officials said…
The Pentagon’s military service chiefs hold a range of views on social issues, including on open service by gays and women in combat. But there was no push from senior leaders to re-establish the ban on transgender service members, officials have said.
The Wall Street Journal report did not say if the Pentagon would fully reverse Obama’s policy of allowing people to switch their claimed sex in military personnel records. That policy marked his official acceptance of the transgender ideology’s demand that government must force Americans to accept every person’s opposite-sex “gender identity,” even without discrete medical treatment, opposite-sex clothing, or cosmetic genital surgery.
Transgender activists are protesting Trump’s two-sexes policy by arguing that individuals who try to live as members of the other sex can also be effective soldiers. For example, a statement from the director of the pro-transgender Palm Center, Aaron Helkin focused on the individual rights of people who want to live as members of the opposite sex;
It is unconscionable that the Commander-in-Chief would take aim at his own, loyally serving troops for political reasons at a time when the military needs to focus on real threats… Imposing one set of standards for transgender troops, and another set of standards for everyone else is a recipe for disruption, distraction and waste.
Helkin also argued that progressives agree the progressive plan would not hurt military readiness:
Former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and General Martin Dempsey issued statements in support of our nation’s transgender troops, and fifty-six retired Generals and Admirals concluded that banning transgender troops would ’cause significant disruptions’ and would ‘degrade readiness even more than the failed ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.’ These distinguished military leaders are correct.
Transgender troops have been serving openly in the U.S. military for more than a year, and have been widely praised by Commanders. Eighteen foreign militaries allow transgender personnel to serve, and none have reported any compromise to readiness. All available research, including scholarly publications by the RAND Corporation as well as retired General and Flag Officers, has reached the same conclusion: inclusive policy for LGBT personnel promotes readiness.
In contrast, supporters of the normal two-sexes policies say transgenderism would disrupt morale and readiness by forcing biologically-intact men and women to share bathrooms, showers and living facilities.
For example, military training slides now say that male and female soldiers must provide “dignity and respect” to opposite-sex “transgender” soldiers who enter their bathrooms and showers. However, “Transgender Soldiers are not required or expected to modify or adjust their behavior based on the fact that they do not ‘match’ other Soldiers,” according to the slides, which were first leaked by TheFederalist.com.
Also, people who wish to live as members of the opposite sex adopt often-disabling and expensive medical procedures. For example, men who wish to live as women usually take a diet of medications to reduce their natural testosterone levels, which are vital in building and repairing muscles. A person’s decision to try to switch sexes is also considered a mental condition, labeled euphemistically as “gender dysphoria.” The high cost of extra medical treatment for sex-switching soldiers has been touted as a reason to oppose Obama’s policy.
Supporters of the two-sex policy also point out that many civic institutions are being damaged by progressives legislatures and judiciaries which require Americans to accept other persons’ claims to have switched sex, even when the claimants have not undergone any cosmetic surgery. Progressives also argue that people have an intangible male or female “gender” which is not linked to their male or female biology — despite overwhelming evidence that each person’s character is shaped by their male or female body, not by a so-far undetected “gender.”
These “gender identity” claims have a growing impact on the operation of different-sex bathrooms, shelters for battered women, sports leagues for girls, hiking groups for boys, K-12 curricula, university speech codes, religious freedoms, free speech, the social status of women, parents’ rights in childrearing, practices to help teenagers, women’s expectations of beauty, culture and civic society, scientific research, prison safety, civic ceremonies, school rules, men’s sense of masculinity, law enforcement, and children’s sexual privacy.
The gender vs. two-sexes issue is being weighed by state and federal courts, and the Supreme Court is being pressured by progressives to impose their one-size-fits-all transgender ideology on the nation. Trump’s opposition to Obama’s approval for the ideology creates a major obstacle for that strategy, especially because Attorney General Jeff Sessions has also shifted Justice Department policies. Sessions has directed agency lawyers to discard Obama-era claims that the transgender ideology is supported by recent reevaluations of long-standing laws.
Polls show that roughly one-quarter of Americans support the progressive claim that biological sex is less important that chosen “gender identity,” despite intense media pressure in favor of the pro-transgender, anti-sexes campaign.
There are very few “transgender” people. For example, advocates say from 1,320 t0 11,000 people in the military are trying fully or partly to live like members of the other sex, within the military population of 1.3 million full-time soldiers, sailors, marines and air force personnel. Fewer than o.3 percent of Americans wish to live as members of the opposite sex.
Trump’s formal opposition to the transgender ideology is pushing Democrats to make their unpopular transgender ideology an issue in the 2018 elections. However, Obama has said twice that his 2016 support for the ideology helped contribute to Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the presidential election.
Trump’s support for the two sexes has been applauded by conservatives. In July, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, applauded Trump’s policy, saying: “I do think it helps the average American to stand up and say what is obvious [and] that is refreshing … the overwhelming majority of Americans in most surveys I’ve seen do not think the federal government should be blurring the lines between the two biological sexes.”