People Don't Get It

So let's get it out in the open: there are a significant amount of leaders in the military who support President Trump's decision to prevent transgender people from serving in the military. I know, I know: those backwards motherfuckers who get paid to shoot people (read: defend your loony ass) support such a bigoted man and a backwards policy!



Settle the fuck down, because the truth is, your opinion doesn't matter (most likely). I don't see the majority of you throwing up pictures of yourself in uniform, holding a rifle (either in the rear with the gear, or deployed to a combat zone). I also notice a distinct lack of people having a "Dr." in front of their name and having the proper psychological studies under their belts chiming in, like they matter. So let's get this out of the way: your opinion does not matter. No one gives a shit if you think it's a bigoted decision, no one cares that you wholeheartedly support the rights of transgender people to serve in the military, because no one's coming down into your mommy's basement where you dwell to get that opinion from you.



Let's start off, then. To begin with, the issue at hand is not transgenderism, it is the underlying condition known as "gender dysphoria". For those who don't know (and are still chiming in, shut the fuck up, please), this is what psychologists and psychiatrists view as the mental disorder causing the lack of comfort in the transgender person's body. The "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM-5) provides for one diagnosis of gender dysphoria, but sets out separate criteria between children and adolescents/adults. Since what matters is young people and adults in this case, the DSM-5 requires at least two of the following criteria be met before a mental health professional diagnoses the person with gender dysphoria:



1.) A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex characteristics;

2.) A strong desire to be rid of one’s primary and/or secondary sex characteristics;

3.) A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender;

4.) A strong desire to be of the other gender;

5.) A strong desire to be treated as the other gender, and/or;

6.) A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender



What's more, the DSM-5 stipulates that this criteria must be met for at least six months. Generally speaking, while seeing a psychologist or mental health professional in the military, you can (and often are) placed on a modified duty, usually referred to as "light or limited duty" or "profile" in the army. For at least this six months, you are considered "non-deployable". You can't go into the field on training exercises, you can't deploy to a combat zone, you can't do the vast majority of what the military expects of you. You are, literally, useless in almost every aspect of military life. Keep in mind, this is the bare minimum, and these diagnoses can take even longer. So assuming you have gone through (talking about the Marines here) boot camp, followed by Marine Combat Training (for noninfantry types), followed by your MOS school, this can run up to 20 weeks at the earliest before you see yourself in the Fleet. Now, imagine that you go immediately to see the psychologist. That psychologist might decide to modify your duty, placing you on limited duty status for six months (for simplicity's sake, I'll say this is 24 weeks), meaning that now you are nondeployable for 44 weeks, almost a full year. But we're not done yet.



See, now we have to go through hormone replacement therapy. This places you, once again, on modified duty status for a period of at least 3 months, depending on your body's reaction to the hormones. So, we're now at (not including initial training) 36 weeks of nondeployable status.



So now what? Assuming that all of this worked and you are sitting here, feeling better, you decide to go under the knife. The surgery's a success. Good for you. But now, you extend your limited duty profile by a minimum of 210 days, or 30 weeks. That is 66 weeks of nondeployable status due to medical issues. That is over one year of modified status because of gender dysphoria and trying to correct it. In reality, this is almost 18 months total of you not being able to deploy, placing a burden on your command. God forbid you have complications, by the way.



And after that, maybe you'll get to see a psychologist to help you complete the transition, because the fact of the matter is, you can go through all of this but the work isn't over. They may feel you need more time adjusting, and thus may modify your duty status further. At the very least, they hear you're deploying and you'll see your position on the manning docket canked. You will be useless in almost everything at that point.



Now keep in mind, this is all based on a best case scenario. But there is not 'best case' about this. The military is spread thin, even now. Detailers are sending troops to units to give them the bare minimum of what they need to complete the mission. We already deny entrance to the military for other issues: sleep apnea, sleepwalking, asthma, prior use of antidepressants...hell, I was almost denied entry because I took Accutane to treat my acne as a teenager! So we're already talking about the fact that there are other issues that, in many ways, are far less than this mental condition that deny you entry.



And you'll notice "anti-depressants" disqualifies you. This is huge. According to a study published by the Williams Institute in 2014, respondents to studies done by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, as well as the National Center for Transgender Equality since 2001 put the suicide attempt rate at between 25% and 43%. Of these numbers, in the age bracket of 18 to 24 the attempt rate was 45%. For years, transgender people have had an immensely high suicide attempt rate. So why would you want to give them easier access to rifles and handguns?



I have never deployed. But the stress of boot camp gave me an idea of what it's like. I have seen grown men break during boot camp because of the stress (thankfully, I didn't). You constantly have drill instructors screaming in your face, calling you everything under the sun but a child of God. You have constant stress induced by the physical and mental training you go through. So compound that all with a demographic that has close to 50% suicide attempt rates, and you'll see more at basic training. And in combat? I guarantee you, you'll have more people taking the easy damn way out when the stress gets up there.



And I won't even go into training standards. How do you test them during a physical fitness test? By their assigned-at-birth gender's requirements, or the new gender's? In the latter case, male-to-female with ace tests simply because of physical differences (seriously, if you don't believe me watch Fallon Fox kick the shit out of women and tell me that's a fluke...it isn't); in the former, female-to-male will simply be at a disadvantage because of those differences. And the military is a meritocracy: if you don't do well during the physical fitness tests, you don't get promoted (or at least you don't get all the point you need).



So with a higher rate of suicide attempts, the fact you're spending at least 18 months (of a four-year hitch, which most people go through), and the burden it places on the military to test and create new standards for right here and now so people aren't screwed out of promotions, why would you want to have this happen? People keep acting like the military is some popularity contest, and they can do whatever they want. They cry out for new standards for themselves--beards in uniform, different standards for women joining the infantry, etc.--and ignore the larger fact that the purpose of the United States military is very simple: to efficiently kill people who would have no problems killing you.



But hey, what do I know? I'm just a Marine officer who still deals with this shit as it is.

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