Transgender People Banned From Military By Trump!!

[Guest Angelgrlsue]

I just read this on MSNBC News.  Trump has reversed what Obama included for the our transgender military.  Here is the link to the news story.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-announces-ban-on-transgender-people-in-us-military/ar-AAoRtZ6?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

[tracy_j]

I only skimmed through this but it seems the official broadcast medium is Twitter

What happened to democratic process, or is it just a case of the press winding people up as usual!

Tracy

 

[Charlize]

This is unfortunately real!  While i have never had a desire to serve in the military there are many who do for various reasons.  The cost of our medical care is a poor excuse.  Trump spends more of our money than that traveling to his golf outings.   Well at least we won't have to register or get drafted?

 

Hugs,

 

Charlize

[Cyndee]

All hail the commander in tweet. What a cowardly way to tell brave Americans already serving in our military you are no longer welcome. He gets off on tweeting and watching the world react, how evil....

[Cindy Truheart]

I'm starting to wonder what is going to happen first. The Orange Clown gets impeached or the Orange Clown gets assassinated because he keeps making someone's life more and more miserable?

[Khoriilya]

It really makes me want to sit and cry..I almost called the suicide hotline..

[Khoriilya]

I am ok now.  But I feel like things will just get worse...

[Charlize]

I'm glad your feeling better.  These things do hurt my feeling of self worth.  

You are not alone in your feelings.  

 

Hugs,

 

Charlize

[Cindy Truheart]

I'm confident that this is a bump in the road. It's just like what happened with Civil Rights and Gay Rights. Some jerk(s) come along after the conversation gets started and try to derail the whole thing with their bigotry. This is why I'm all about being public. I feel like we are hitting tip over. It's time to push forward harder than ever now. I refuse to go back into the closet!

Just remember, nobody can make us feel small unless we let them! Go watch Wonder Woman and get inspired!

Love and Light!!

[Carolyn Marie]

Lots of analysis today, and opinions from law school types, military types and political types.  What seems clear is that nothing about this is clear, despite Trump's seeming definitive pronouncement.  The military wasn't on board with this, and the latest I heard is that they are currently saying that currently serving and out service members are not going to be forced out.

The problem is that the only person who gave this any thought is Trump, and we all know how little he actually does of that on any given subject.  So its best to just wait and see what the follow-up is, what the military brass says in a week or two.  Even the ACLU isn't going to do anything until and unless they see an actual written policy.

Bottom line is, this is not the time to panic.

Carolyn Marie

[VickySGV]

2 hours ago, Carolyn Marie said:

Bottom line is, this is not the time to panic.

Panic, NO. but indignation and frustration are up there for consideration.  Having Twitter block him is high in the national interest to be sure.

 

[MarcieMarie12]

12 hours ago, Cindy Truheart said:

I'm starting to wonder what is going to happen first. The Orange Clown gets impeached or the Orange Clown gets assassinated because he keeps making someone's life more and more miserable?

I wonder if there is going to be a massive boycottt of the trump brand. 

[Jani]

Costs?  I've read the military spent $84M on viagra last year.  And the Military Bands cost $437M.  I think $2.4M to $8.4M estimated cost is a bargain.

Jani

[Guest KatherineR]

The cost argument is ridiculous. Discharging a qualified person to save a few thousand dollars for HRT only makes sense to a financial genius like Trump. Many in the military have had one to two or more years of training costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. By the time I reached my ship the navy had paid for four years at a private university, six months of classroom training in Florida, six months of practical training at a nuclear reactor in Idaho, and three months of submarine training in Connecticut. 

[MarcieMarie12]

Here is an interesting read from politico. 

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/26/trump-transgender-military-ban-behind-the-scenes-240990

In the end it appears that members in the house were upset at paying for "the surgery" and were about to loose a house vote on it and went to trump. Trump in turn just said he would ban transgender troops.

[Guest JaneShannon]

Sorry, I have to be a bit of a dissenter on this, or present a different point of view.

The only question worth considering to me is "how will this affect readiness?" 

If inclusion of trans peoples will negatively impact the ability of the military to fight and win the nation's wars we are not needed.  If trans-people will not negatively impact readiness then we should not be excluded. There are two important sides to military service.  Wanting to serve, and being fit to serve.  Being fit to serve means that when called upon the Service Member is ready to deploy and fight.  Military service is not about what you want, but about what the nation needs.  Remember JFK, "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

So does taking on a Service Member who will, or does, require medical interventions degrade readiness?

The answer is...it depends.

If you are an otherwise healthy person who requires an inhaler to control asthma you will probably be medically disqualified.  

Here is another example.  If a recruit is a healthy, genetic female, who has the potential to become pregnant she can join.  Remember readiness, once she becomes pregnant she will be non-deployable for year or more.  Yet the military regularly accepts genetic females knowing pregnancy could (and usually does) happen.  So future impacts on military readiness do not bar people from military service.

I would think if a trans person is medically stable there should be no reason not to be accepted to military service.  I doubt a cis-gendered person on HRT would be disqualified.  Further, the military would then fund this person's medications, and monitor the impacts of those medications.  

Sorry, this got long.  As I work through this, I do not see how a healthy transgender person would negatively impact readiness. Therefore, identification as transgender alone should not bar someone from military service.

[Briana]

15 hours ago, KatherineR said:

The cost argument is ridiculous.

Katherine - this is so true.  Isn't it amazing how much training goes into readiness.  Just like private industry, so many times the we loose sight of how much $$$ goes into recruiting, training, and orienting good people.  Investing in good people...not just good men, or good women, but good people, always pays off.  If you're a good leader, in the end all you want is a well-trained, capable, dedicated person.  Doesn't matter if there's a twig and berries or a Gucci purse down there as long as you have the above.

 

7 hours ago, JaneShannon said:

The only question worth considering to me is "how will this affect readiness?" 

Jane, this is also interesting to consider.  My Marine friend ended up with a medical discharge due to a simple blood disorder that he developed 10 years in.  The basic treatment was daily iron.  Because of this, it was determined that it would be too difficult to provide consistently in the field affecting his readiness so he was deemed undeployable and given a medical discharge.  Crushed him!  How readiness and if someone is deployable sometimes sees like a rather subjective thing.    

[Cindy Truheart]

On 7/28/2017 at 8:41 AM, Briana said:

Jane, this is also interesting to consider.  My Marine friend ended up with a medical discharge due to a simple blood disorder that he developed 10 years in.  The basic treatment was daily iron.  Because of this, it was determined that it would be too difficult to provide consistently in the field affecting his readiness so he was deemed undeployable and given a medical discharge.  Crushed him!  How readiness and if someone is deployable sometimes sees like a rather subjective thing.    

Another factor that they consider for readiness is the impact of someone not getting their medication when deployed. In the case of your friend and in the case of a friend of mine who was also discharged and fought it all the way to the top, not getting their medications means that it could kill them. That is what they look at, and in our case, if we don't get our HRT it would totally suck, but we won't die from it!

Love and Light!

[VickySGV]

5 hours ago, Cindy Truheart said:

, if we don't get our HRT it would totally suck, but we won't die from it!

Nailed that one!!

[MarcieMarie12]

21 hours ago, Cindy Truheart said:

 if we don't get our HRT it would totally suck, but we won't die from it!

Love and Light!

Not directly, but it can lead to us not taking care of ourselves, depression, and a whole host of other bad behaviors because some of us just won't care anymore. 

 

[Cindy Truheart]

1 hour ago, MarcieMarie12 said:

Not directly, but it can lead to us not taking care of ourselves, depression, and a whole host of other bad behaviors because some of us just won't care anymore. 

 

But from the military's view, it's not life threatening, therefore it can't be the basis for denial of service. They don't have a leg to stand on for denying transgender people the right to serve in the military. That is what I'm saying here. Not getting HRT would eventually be a problem for us, but knowing that we can go back on it as soon as the situation we're in is  resolved would be enough for most soldiers. We are talking about extreme circumstances here, it's a war time situation kind of thing, and it isn't like you are being forced to de-transition, you would still require people to use the right pronouns and be able to be yourself.

[MarcieMarie12]

Cindy, and the military is wrong in that regard. They do not see the forest for the trees. Now in an emergency/combat situation you always make do with what you have. Barring WWWII I don't see getting soldiers their prescription to be a problem unless they are located in some remote outpost in hostile territory. 

[Alex-John]

trump is nothing more than a bully and  roll on to the next election  hopefully he be booted out of office soon and he most likely behave like a spoilt child about it  but goodness know what mess he will do in the mean time 

 

[Charlize]

Welcome Alexx.  It's lovely to see that positive thought coming from your side of the pond.  Being from the USA i must say that i'm embarrassed (and more than a bit horrified) that  he ever became our president.

 

Hugs,

 

Charlize

[Alex-John]

ID be embarrassed too if he was ruining my country the way he is  hillary would have been better She wouldnt have done anything like what he has done 

She also would have done something about the death camps in Russia that are killing lgbt  people which hasnt been in the mainstream news at all  Trump would do nothing about this sorry to be all doom and gloom  but the guy needs kicked out  by impeachment or by election 

 

All LGBT people who want jobs in the military and who are fit to be there should be allowed jobs  this is very 1960's  when stonewall and lgbt rights was non existent  . that why i think things like lgbt pride  and Trans pride are important and more awaresness of the issues for LGBT people We are stronger together 

 

sorry for the rant 

(((((( hugs for all )))) 

Alex