Last month we talked about a possible delay in new U.S. military rules allowing “openly transgender” applicants to enlist in the service. (That was left in the hands of General Mattis.) It seems that this is truly just a delay and not a foreshadowing of some possible reversal of course. In preparation for this shift in policy, the Army is rolling out special training material specifically tailored for female soldiers to “train” them in advance so they can be prepared for the day when a “woman with male genitalia” strolls into the shower with them. (Life Site News)

The U.S. Army is telling women soldiers that they need to accept gender-confused, biological men in their showers, bathrooms, and barracks as part of a controversial policy to build “dignity and respect” for “transgender Soldiers.” The guidance is part of the Pentagon’s new “transgender inclusion” agenda launched by Obama and gaining ground in the Armed Services. Social conservatives are mounting a counteroffensive to ditch the “trans” program altogether… In “Vignette 4” of an Army’s PowerPoint guidance, titled, “Policy on the Military Service of Transgender Soldiers Training Module, Tier 3: Units and Soldiers,” issued last September, it states the following regarding a hypothetical “transgender Soldier” who is “transitioning” to a new “gender”:

Here’s one of the slides from the training presentation as published by Life Site.

“Following her transition from male to female (which did not include sex reassignment surgery) and gender marker change in DEERS [the Army’s personnel system – Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System], a transgender Soldier begins using female barracks, bathroom, and shower facilities. Because she did not undergo a surgical change, the Soldier still has male genitalia.”

There’s a wealth of additional details and background at Life Site, but a couple of questions immediately arise from this revelation.

For one thing, you’ll notice that virtually all of the material being generated in this field has to do with men “transitioning to be women” rather than the other way around. Why do you suppose that is? Hard data on the subject is notoriously difficult to find, but one New York Times report from 2015 estimated that female to male transitions were almost twice as common (65 – 35) than the reverse. Yet in the military it seems to skew in the reverse direction. Curious.

More to the point, this training material highlights some of the basic facts about military life which make accommodating these situations even more complicated than out in the civilian world. In public places of business, government offices or even schools there tends to be more room for construction and alterations. This is useful if a compromise must be reached for certain individuals to have single user, non-gender specific facilities made available to them. That’s less often the case in military barracks and particularly in mobile units and naval vessels. Women in such circumstances who would prefer not to share the shower with someone with a penis are left with few options other than abandoning their military career and attempting to get out of the service.

And finally, this is yet another example of the government abandoning any dedication to science and facts while bending to pressures from social justice activists. There has yet to be one iota of repeatable scientific data presented which indicates that a person born with the normal complement of either X-X or X-Y chromosomes in their 23rd pair can be proven to be other than their natural gender. Out in the civilian world we have the free speech based option to simply let everyone define themselves as they wish as long as they aren’t infringing on the privacy and rights of others who feel differently. Not so in the military. This is just a problem waiting to happen and it’s only a matter of time.

UPDATE: (Jazz) I’ve been reminded that this story actually broke a couple of weeks ago via James Hasson at The Federalist.