The US Military Discriminates and Anyone Who Cares about Our Country Should Be Glad It Does

As is often the case, one of my old posts becomes relevant years later. Such is the case with this topic and I cannibalized the old one for the new.

Six persons who are on active duty in the US military and two who are ex-military have filed suit challenging President Trump’s executive order banning continued service for transgender persons. (I had trouble trying to figure out who the parties are in a federal hearing in which a judge is questioning President Trump’s motives for reinstating the ban. These basic facts should be stated up front in the reportage.)

Many forget that it was originally President Obama who, in 2016, changed the military’s long-standing policy barring transgender individuals from serving. President Trump simply reverted to the old policy during his first term and, because President Biden dropped the transgender ban again, President Trump had to repeat his action.

Like almost all disqualifications for military service, the transgender bans and the reinstated bans are strictly military-readiness issues. Simply, if your condition makes your presence dangerous for you and/or other military members in a war zone, you cannot enlist, not even as a Chairborne Ranger (like me). You are non-deployable.

The old bans - those involving racial segregation and open homosexuality - did not involve deployment risks and were merely sociological. That’s why they were discarded.

(During my time of service, I served alongside several gay people - Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell was a thing long before President Clinton made it an official policy. I didn’t care about this and most people I know didn’t either. As a matter of fact, a few of my good friends have come out after leaving the USAF.)

(The point is that these people served honorably and were not a hindrance to the missions of which they were a part. And they were deployable.)

However, the notion that there is no place in the military for discrimination is laughable.

The judge presiding over the hearing, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, asked this question of the government attorney: “If you were in a foxhole, would you care about these individuals' gender identity?”

The government attorney told Judge Reyes that the gender status of other service members would not be a primary concern of his were he in a foxhole. It would not be one for me either - unless that person were in that foxhole with me.

This disingenuous question shows that Judge Reyes does not understand the foundational reasons that transgender persons should not be in the military.

A person going through transgender treatment requires, as I understand it, a great deal of hormones which are foreign to him/her and can, therefore, unpredictably affect behavior. Additionally, those hormones - those drugs - must continually be provided to that person.

Now I’m not a logistics expert but I can imagine what it would be like to have to ensure that these drugs get to an area where the enemy is attacking. Wars are chaotic and such a scenario would simply compound the craziness.

For this reason transgender persons cannot be assigned to overseas locations and it never made sense to allow them to join the military - unless the intention was to weaken military readiness, but that topic is for another essay.

(Side note: In one of the articles about the hearing, it is stated that one of the plaintiffs is a Bronze Star recipient, which indicates probable overseas service. One wonders whether he/she started the transgender process before or after the events which resulted in him/her receiving the Bronze Star.)

And transgender persons are far from the only group that is discriminated against when it comes to entry into the military or continued service.

While I was active duty USAF, I had three career fields: Aircraft Armament Systems Specialist, Germanic Linguist, and Slavic Linguist (Russian). And - pertinent to this topic - in the Reserves, I was an Aeromedical Services Specialist and an EMT.

I have many talents.

As Reserve medics, we performed the paraprofessional part of annual physicals for both flight crews and ground personnel and for some new recruits; that is, immunizations, EKGs, hearing tests, eye exams, etc. Ironically, I was the NCOIC of the Immunization Clinic. (In answer to a question that may have popped up in your mind upon that revelation: zero.)

And it was our duty to be familiar with the regulations regarding entry into service and continued service.

Here are a few which bar entry into military service:

• Any immunodeficiency

• Deafness

• Blindness

• Diabetes

• Arthritis

• Absence of one kidney

• Being too short or too tall

• Asthma

• Previous cold injury (frostbite)

• Organ transplant recipient

• Previous seizures

• Previous sleep walking

• Tourette’s syndrome

• Vocal cord paralysis (RFK, Jr. has this)

• Sickle-cell anemia

And this is but the tip of the iceberg. There's a very long list of disqualifying conditions for entry into military service here.

Disqualifications for continued service are a little different, but the point is that the military is discriminatory by its very nature.

So, all the general leftist and activist judge wailing about the military's transgender ban is mere ignorance and in my opinion, that ignorance is willful.

The military exists to fight wars and to win them. In order to achieve this, it must discriminate; it must separate the able-bodied and able-minded from those who are neither.

A patriotic and honest person who is transgender would understand the reality of his/her situation and that of the military. I bet there are such people out there.

To be fair, we’ve had two commanders-in-chief in the last fifteen years who pretended to not understand this as well. I’m glad that is not the case right now.

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