About That Transgenders in the Military Thing…
The military is about the collective, not accommodation. It is about YOU meeting the military’s needs, not the military meeting yours. Service is not a “right,” it is a privilege. Flat feet will keep you out as well, and would require no extensive surgery, no time lost for counselling or drug therapies, nor a lifetime of government funded aftercare, yet the flat foot lobby is ignored. There are no courses designed for “Clinical Care: the Flat Footed”, like the course I’ve included below related to transgender care. The strawmen about “what about blacks/women when THEY weren’t welcome” is precisely that. No surgical intervention required, no counselling, no time lost to the unit because black or female. Even the pregnancy canard falls to the wayside. Once that baby is birthed? Back to work. And no VA care commitment for the rest of the mother’s life. All this for an elective surgery. And it IS “elective,” a CHOICE. There are no gaping fissures, no sucking chest wounds involved, no burst appendix that needs immediate attending to. Choice.
You have to choose this surgery. That new life. Conceivably someone could come in surreptiously specifically for the surgery and, once in and on their way into the “process”, between counselling, therapies, recuperative time, etc., they might never spend a day of a four-year enlistment doing anything, ANYTHING they trained for, or in support of their unit. They certainly wouldn’t be deployable. And after that gift of $130,000+ surgery, all expense paid transition, for which they basically contributed nothing to the collective, they go out the door to the civilian world with lifetime medical from the VA paying for all their hormones and consequent related medical needs. Why? Because they had the surgery while on active duty.
Someone on another thread said “but it’s only tiny percentage of DoD budget” which worked out to however many tens of millions. I remember having to count actual gallons of fuel going into tactical aircraft at the end of the fiscal year because we ran out of MONEY. Those umpteefrats millions MATTER, believe me. When you have Congress talking about pulling one BAH from MARRIED active duty couples because MONEY, those “penny in the budget” millions MATTER. And I’m sorry. Your “elective” life choice shouldn’t impact readiness or another service person’s life in any negative fashion at all. God knows it’s hard enough now.
Of course there are the few exceptional individuals who can do it. Who aren’t the drag: like someday there will be a female who makes it through the REAL Combat Officer’s Course (not a standards lowered one). But that doesn’t speak to the larger entity, to the collective that HAS to be maintained. And that one-off changes nothing, truthfully. It can’t. You have to carry your load most all the time. And not make anyone else’s heavier because you are needy (You also have to be prepared for unvarnished truth from your fellows if you do slack, and people want their feelings protected these days, deserved or otherwise). Don’t quote SEALs at me who are now “female” and squawk at the president, when she was a HE when all the heroics went down and would never BE a SEAL were she a “she” originally. It’s now just his opinion. He’s no moral authority as a transgender because he did none of it AS a she. Glad you were on the Bin Laden raid, dude. Did you do it in drag and on hormones? No? Then STFU.
My sweet little brother couldn’t join the military because of diabetes, the other because of vertebrae crunching. I feel for them because those things are BEYOND their control and, yet, they are disqualifiers. IT’S NOT FAIR, right? Why should something that is one’s totally elective, entirely individual choice be any less disqualifying, when it is so patently a disruptive, counterproductive, expense-luxury-we-can’t-afford choice in regards to the military?
“Fair” is in the eye of the beholder and has never had anything to do with military service. That’s why it works.
Further Reading:
#91920: Clinical Care of the Transgender Patient
Not normally a fan of the Family Research Council, but they have got ALL the numbers nailed, from surgery and therapy to unit impacts.
UPDATE:
I just had to share the helpful assist for the argument via Lady Gaga to POTUS:
PERFECT! SIGN THEM UP and for God’s sake – make SURE THEY EACH GET A GUN!!!
Military Thingies, Nanny State, Politics | tree hugging sister | 
July 27, 2017 10:44 am
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Word.
Golden.
Got it in one. Perfect.
Grazi, all.