Ok this is getting way out of control! WTH is going on with the Military?
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28 Jun 2021 Military.com | By Steve Beynon
Transgender soldiers can openly serve in the Army and the force will provide hormone theropy, mental health care and surgeries they might require, according to a force-wide memo issued out last week. "This directive supersedes all previous guidance," Maj. Gen. Douglas Stitt, director of the Army G-1 Military Personnel Management Office, told reporters at a June 24 news conference. "The Army is open to all who can meet the standards. No otherwise qualified soldiers may be discharged or denied service, solely on the basis of gender identity."
A soldier's gender identity will no longer be a cause for involuntary separation, denied reenlistment or other adverse action, according to the memo. The Army's new policy follows President Joe Biden's executive order on his first week in office in January repealing a Trump-era ban on transgender troops.
To qualify for gender-transition care, soldiers have to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria. According to the American Physicatric Assosication, gender dysphoria refers to psychological distress resulting from an individual's biological sex conflicting with their identity.
Treatment from the Army will consist of four elements: "hormones, psychotherapy, real-life experience, and surgical intervention," Col. Deidra Briggs-Anthony, assistant deputy of health affairs for manpower and reserve affairs explained. But not all soldiers will require all four components for their transition.
"That timeline can vary, case by case. Some may need weeks, others could [need] months," Briggs-Anthony said. "The plan made by health care providers will be communicated with the soldier's chain of command. She added that the timing of treatment may affect some soldiers' availability for duty, and some soldiers may be placed on a medical profile.
According to the memo, the "real-life experience" is a "necessary precursor" to gender-related surgeries. The real-life experience phase "generally encompasses dressing in the new gender and using self-identified gender bathroom and showering facilities."
Once the soldier feels stable and their transition is complete, their self-identified gender will be reflected in Army personnel records.Once that change is final, all physical standards and requirements for that given gender will apply, according to the memo. While the Army's previous fitness test had a dramatic difference in standards between men and women, it is unclear if the new test will incorporate gender-specific standards as leaders continue to tweak it.
Transgender candidates previously had to serve in their biological sex and prove they have been mentally and physically stable for 36 months before enlisting or commissioning in the Army. Under the new policy, new recruits can serve in their self-identified gender and only have to demonstrate 18 prior months of stability. That timeline can also be waived in certain circumstances, according to the new policy.
Applicants to join the Army must have a U.S. passport or certified copy of a court order reflecting their self-identified gender.
It is unclear how many transgender troops there are. Defense Department data shows there are 726 soldiers serving in the Army who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the most out of all the branches. DoD shos 576 transgender service members in the Navy, 449 in the Air Force and 141 in the Marine Corps, but the data could skew low given the likelihood of additional troops who never sought a formal diagnosis.
Earlier this month, Military.com reported 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 - a relative drop in the bucket compared to the mammoth $35.6 billion for descretionary health care spending in the proposed 2022 budget.
According to the Defense Health Agency, the surgeries were performed in military health facilities and included removal of testicles or breasts, hysterectomies and labiaplasty.
The Army's policy follows the Department of Veterans Affairs' announcement that they too would provide gender confirmation surgery to transgender veterans.
"We're making these changes not only because they are the right thing to do, but because they can save lives," VA Secretary Denis McDonough said earlier this month. "When President Biden nominated me to lead the VA, he told me to fight like hell for our Vets. And when he said that, he meant all veterans."
We have a serious problem when our military cares more for social justice than it does for military readiness. This is a major distraction, and one [they] have been capitalizing on in the process. Gays or lesbians have always been in militaries going back to before the days of Athens, Egypt, Persia, and Sparta. It's to be expected that when faced with almost certain death or maiming, that certain individuals will develop certain "affections" toward their battle buddies, and that's perfectly fine. Some or most of you may not agree, and that's fine too. Those that speak the loudest against this are mostly ones that have never served in any military capacity, so your opinions don't mean shit to those of us who have served and have had to rely on the guy or girl next to us, even if they're homo. Some of me best friends have been gay/lesbian. I've been to war with most of them and owe my life to a couple, and visa versa.
That being said, our militaries should be tasked primarily with protecting it's citizens and it's country's interests. And most are. You can protect your country effectively WITHOUT a distraction like this. To have people who will potentially deploy, only to have them distracted in one way or another over this subject is unacceptable. The recovery times for the gender reassignment surgeries are lengthy. That means these people will be put in a Limited Duty status, which is non deployable, for Leng hs of time anywhere from 1-6 months or more, depending on the surgery. And in the case of male-female transitions, the "upkeep" of that new hole is expensive. A lot of times they end up infected, which requires even more lengthy Limited Duty Status times.
Lemme tell you from personal experience, having broke my back and spending time on Limited Duty, the MAX limit is 18 mths in any 20 yr period. So, for some of these people, they will eat that time up and be "forced" out of the military faster than anyone will realize. On e your reach the 18 mth limit, any placement into a Limited Duty status after results in a MedSep, EVEN IF you can perform at the proscribed level with/without limitations. This can be appealed, but not more than once. So EVEN IF they successfully appeal and are allowed to stay in, any future placements on Limited Duty WILL STILL result in a MedSep. It's automatic. The military branches have no choice with the way it's written into the DOD framework's Rules & Regs.
Placements in Limited Duty take away from deployable manning, with no replacements. So, Commands really don't like to place people in that status because it means they deploy with that much less manpower.
Now, I understand that most gays and lesbians don't want to transition. But for every few homos, there's at least one who wants to transition to the opposite gender. If there are 50,000 thousand gays and lesbians in the military (and those numbers really are hard to track so this is just analogy), that means at least 3-5,000 of them want to transition and could potentially do this while on AD. That's a whole Regiment's worth. In the USAF, it would be a whole Wing, and in the Navy that's equivalent to an Aircraft Carrier, a Destroyer, Frigate, or Sub Squadron, and more than twice the size of a Carrier Air Wing. It's also more people than ALL of the US Navy SeAL teams, more than USMC'S Force Recon Div, and more than the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment. That's A LOT of manpower that can be potentially sidelined for any length of time. It puts too much strain on the whole of the military to have the individual commands worried that upwards of 2-3%, or more, could be sidelined at any one time.
The financial cost is enormous, as well. Plastic surgery is expensive, and to th beat of my knowledge, we don't have any board certified plastic surgeons employed in the military. The ones we have at the various military hospitals are civilian contractors. There are some plastic surgeons that are Reservists, but that number is miniscule. These surgeries run in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. We all know the military likes to cut costs as much as possible, bit guess where the funds come from for ALL military surgeries? They come from the service member's command. I don't know of any command who would normally be willing to set aside monies for gender reassignment, even a partial, without being forced to do it by the WH/DOD. And y'all know where the extra money will come from for this budget. That's right, the American PEOPLE.
Folks, this is gonna be horrendous for the military, and as such, horrendous for the public. It isn't in the military's charter to have to concern itself with this kind and amount of "social justice." It's gonna create and foment more distraction by creating and fomenting division and strife amongst the ranks.
We HAVE TO contact Congress, the DOD, and the WH and tell th this is unacceptable and demand an end to this bullshit. Not all of the higher ranks are Buyden/Cabal. We need to get through to them.
I agree with you, and to boot they will get VA benefits when they get out of military for the "medical issues" they will have because of the surgeries. And what if after it's all done and later they realize it wasn't what they really wanted, can they sue the military?
My husband had a heck of a time just to get some of his VA benefits due him. They still "acknowledged" he has other health issues, but haven't given him more percentage. He has 70% now, which took years to get. He said it will make it harder for Vets to get the care they deserve because of these people who get these surgeries to change their sex. He had a doctor that told him he wouldn't give him a medication so they could "save it for someone who needed it more than he did". It was a medicine that he needed and that VA doc told him no he couldn't have it. So my husband said I'm done here and left. It took him a few years of complaining and asking for a new doctor before they gave him a new doctor (after Trump was elected is when they finally listened to him and gave him a new doctor). He said the Army will be flooded with these people just so they can get the surgery for free, then can't get deployed anywhere, be on profile and when they get out they will probably collect from 100% from VA.