Monday, December 2, 2024

Trans Military Policy

It has been rumored in reports that Trump may ban transgender people from serving in the military.
 
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., applauded the report that President-elect Donald Trump is poised to — once again — reinstate a ban on transgender people in the military, telling Newsmax on Monday that the Biden administration's policy is "total hypocrisy."[1]
 
"We want killers. We want people who are meant for combat," Mace said. "If you're on these gender hormones, you're not deployable. So why are we bringing people into the military you can't deploy? I'm scratching my head. We're better than this, we're stronger than this."[1]

This issue encompasses political, sociological, psychological, and practical aspects.  I’m going to discuss the practical aspect of this which, assuming Mace is correct, is that people going down this path may not be deployable for significant periods of time.  It is mandatory to recognize that the military is not a medical service for people to change lifestyles and genders; it is a killing machine and that requires that all personnel be deployable at all times, barring unavoidable medical illness which is only a very temporary condition.
 
The starting point in this discussion is the recognition that the entire transgender issue in the military is predicated on a faulty basis as demonstrated with this statement:
 
Service members with a diagnosis from a military medical provider indicating that gender transition is medically necessary will be provided medical care and treatment for the diagnosed medical condition … [2]

This statement pre-supposes that gender transition is a medical necessity rather than a choice.  A medical necessity is, by definition, a procedure or treatment that, if not administered, will threaten the life of the patient.  A desire to change gender is not a medical necessity.  Failure to do so does not threaten the life of the patient.  Thus, again by definition, it is a choice and the military should not be in the business of providing elective procedures that are not medically necessary.
 
The following passage from a DoD handbook on the subject demonstrates some of the impacts of gender transitioning on military service.
 
Transitioning gender may have an impact on several different aspects of your career including deployability, assignment considerations, medical classification, and aspects of individual readiness (e.g., physical fitness, body composition assessment, and professional military education attendance). Since the impact to your career could be significant, it is strongly recommended you discuss this with your commander and/or mentor.[3]

There is no logical rationale for the military to assume the responsibility for a voluntary, life-changing medical process.  Service members wishing to undergo such a process should be given the choice of serving out their term and beginning the process in the civilian world upon discharge or taking a less than honorable discharge (for failure to serve out a contractual term) to begin the process in the civilian world immediately.  In no case should the military bear the financial brunt of an unnecessary medical procedure that results in a non-deployable service member for a period(s) of time.
 
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Note:  If you wish to comment, tread carefully.  I have limited the discussion to the practical aspects of the issue as it impacts military service.  We are not going to debate the sociological, mental, or emotional aspects.  There are other blogs for that.
 
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[1]Newsmax website, “Rep. Mace to Newsmax: Trans Military Policy Is 'Hypocrisy'”, Mark Swanson, 25-Nov-2024,
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/nancy-mace-transgender-military/2024/11/25/id/1189368/
 
[2] Transgender Service Member Policy Implementation Fact Sheet
https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/features/2016/0616_policy/Transgender-Implementation-Fact-Sheet.pdf
 
[3] Transgender Service in the U.S. Military - An Implementation Handbook, 30-Sep-2016, p.21,
https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/features/2016/0616_policy/DoDTGHandbook_093016.pdf

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15 comments:

  1. Chinese GordonDecember 2, 2024 at 4:08 PM

    The Pentagon has solved the .0075% problem.
    Now if they could remove, say 5% of the Admirals
    and DCIPS Band 5s with the same efficiency, I'd be more impressed.

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    Replies
    1. ComNavOpsDecember 2, 2024 at 4:36 PM

      From a military.com website article,

      "The Pentagon has spent $15 million in the past five years to treat 1,892 transgender troops, including $11.5 million for psychotherapy and $3.1 million for surgeries, according to Defense Department data provided to Military.com."

      A 2014 UCLA study put the number of transgenders in the military at 15,500. I would assume that figure has increased drastically since then but I have no data.

      Delete
    2. AndyMDecember 2, 2024 at 9:00 PM

      Take the mil healthcare budget of 61.4B divided by the number served 9.5 million and you get about $6500 a year. 15M for 1892 over 5 years is under $1600 per year.

      Delete
    3. ComNavOpsDecember 3, 2024 at 5:44 AM

      "15M for 1892 over 5 years is under $1600 per year."

      I'm guessing your point is that you think it's an insignificant sum and, therefore, not a problem? Of course, those are direct costs, only, and do not include medical facility costs, salaries of medical personnel, paperwork costs, unit disruption impact, non-deployment costs for replacements, lost work time, and so on.

      It also ignores the incremental 'cost' of a hundred 'insignificant', non-warfighting initiatives like equity, climate, environmental, and gender, to name a few. Each, in isolation, may or may not be significant compared to the total Navy budget but, taken in total, they add up. They also hugely impact our warfighting and readiness by consuming time and that time comes from maintenance and training. We also have to account for the immense administrative costs associated with each and all of these efforts - costs that never get accounted for when we sling around cost figures. We've created entire departments and bureaucracies to support these.

      As our focus on social initiatives has increased, our readiness has declined. The two trends are not unrelated.

      So ... what, again, was your point?

      Delete
  2. AnonymousDecember 2, 2024 at 6:40 PM

    This is indeed a slippery slope and we need to tread very carefully..
    For example to get through the MEPS you theoretically need a minimum of one functional testicle, which would obviously disqualify from continued service the whole of the General Staff.

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  3. BA 1959December 3, 2024 at 7:34 AM

    It makes total sense to not allow service members the time off for surgery - so discharge or some sort of leave. But, once someone has transitioned, and they otherwise qualify for service, who cares?

    What do we do for pregnancies? Presumably time off or discharge for the delivery and post birth care, but we don't exclude parents from service if they otherwise qualify.

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    Replies
    1. ComNavOpsDecember 3, 2024 at 11:07 AM

      "once someone has transitioned, and they otherwise qualify for service, who cares?"

      I care ... deeply. My concern is the underlying, unresolved psychological issues that led to the transition in the first place. Just as the failure to finish high school denotes a likely lack of motivation, self-discipline, and fortitude (and, therefore, those people should not be recruited), anyone who transitions clearly has deep emotional problems requiring years of psychological treatment and that's not something the military should be dealing with. It also leads me to question that person's mindset with regard to the mental toughness necessary for combat.

      A parent, to use your comparison, has no deep rooted emotional problems to begin with (at least, no more so than the rest of us!) and, therefore, when they are physically fit to return to service there are no residual, lingering psychological issues. The pregnancy time off is a separate issue and, in my mind, calls for mandatory discharge from service but that's a separate issue.

      Delete
    2. ComNavOpsDecember 3, 2024 at 2:51 PM

      Hopefully, you'll read user Gordon Pasha's comment below and factor both his information and my thoughts into your own thoughts. These are not people who are mentally and emotionally stable and focused on warfighting. Their focus is whatever psychological issues drove them to transition in the first place. Changing one's born biology and psychology is not something that can be done like getting a new hair style or a different color shirt. We have plenty of combat capable people in the population but these are not them.

      Delete
    3. ComNavOpsDecember 3, 2024 at 2:53 PM

      By the way, I'm not trying to 'win' anything. I'm just trying to help everyone understand the scope of this issue and the limitations and problems that come with it.

      Delete
  4. AnonymousDecember 3, 2024 at 8:49 AM

    "A 2014 UCLA study put the number of transgenders in the military at 15,500."

    A problem with perennially non-deployable military personnel is that they are only rarely replaced before/when unit deploys. Sure, a GO/Admiral can readily fill critical deployed staff vacancies with by-name requests or other short notice singleton augmentation, but...

    Ask any Senior NCO what happens when (for instance) 15% of their assigned troops suddenly pop "pregnant" just before a lengthy deployment. Or need suddenly time-critical treatment for a variety of other medical/psychological conditions (PTSD, TBI, Trans Surgery, Mental Health Counseling, Voluntary Substance Abuse Treatment, etc.). Those personnel, in the main, are left behind and not replaced. Forcing deployable units/ships/wings to go down range already seriously undermanned. SIGNIFICANTLT attritted before the first shot is ever fired or the first deployment flight/cruise is underway. As far as the Services and their HR departments are concerned, all MTOE slots are already filled by bodies assigned on paper. Thus end-strength backfills are not authorized.

    Think it doesn't happen that way? Think again. Units deploy short handed, the fewer people present have to make up for the work/shifts of the missing, and unit performance degrades as surely as if the enemy had caused those self-inflicted losses. Something especially prevalent since the mid-years of the GWOT and its concurrent push for social engineering of the military..

    Transgender troops spending most of their service in a non-deployable status count against end-strength... without actually delivering functional return.

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousDecember 3, 2024 at 8:51 AM

      Excuse a few typos in the above comment. Can't seem to find an editing feature.

      Delete
    2. ComNavOpsDecember 3, 2024 at 11:09 AM

      "A problem with perennially non-deployable military personnel is "

      Well said.

      As an aside, there is no edit function, regrettably. That's the downside of a free blog.

      Delete
  5. ~ Gordon PashaDecember 3, 2024 at 11:40 AM

    As an endocrinologist who inherited a number of trans patients from another provider who moved out of state, I can state that none of them who were in the military were emotionally stable enough to be functional in a stress situation. They uniformly had PHQ-9 scores which were in the high teens to the mid=20s.

    "The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) is a depression screening tool that produces a score ranging from 0 to 27. The score is based on how often the patient has been bothered by a series of symptoms over the past two weeks. The score is interpreted as follows:
    0–4: No or minimal depression
    5–9: Mild depression
    10–14: Moderate depression
    15–19: Moderately severe depression
    20–27: Severe depression "

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bob NageleDecember 3, 2024 at 2:54 PM

    Just from a strictly practical point of view. I'm not a doctor (don't even play one on TV) so may not be totally correct about some details.

    As I understand it, when someone does a medical or surgical transition, that means that they must take special, relatively expensive, and somewhat uncommon drugs on a regular basis for the rest of their lives. In addition, they regularly require specialized medical support to track how their body deals with the drugs, and deal with side effects. What is the implication of this when that person is deployed to an austere environment (which many deployments are!) where these drugs and specialists may not be available?

    In addition, in combat we will often be fighting people who are much less understanding about gender fluid individuals than we are. Islamists, for example, and probably Russians come to mind. If the soldier is captured by such people (who tend to ignore rules of war when it comes to treatment of prisoners) I imagine he/she/it/they would be at risk of especially brutal treatment. Are we really doing them a favor by allowing them in the military?

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousDecember 3, 2024 at 9:33 PM

      I dunno hoss, it feels like our captured troops are already at enough risk for brutal treatment just because they're the enemy. Look at the Russians castrating male POWs who were in fact cisgender heterosexual males and not trans in the slightest.

      Delete

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