SIGN THE PETITION: Say NO to Army forcing women to shower with ‘transgender’ men

July 12, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — 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.

President Trump and the Pentagon have sent mixed signals on LGBT issues, with the DoD honoring gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender “pride” month in June even as Trump himself broke with Obama by not issue a homosexual “pride proclamation.”

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”:

“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.”

The pro-transgender lesson then offers the following two points among six “Considerations and Responsibilities” required of Army personnel in such cases:

1-Understand that you may encounter individuals in barracks, bathrooms, or shower facilities with physical characteristics of the opposite sex despite having the same gender marker in DEERS. 2-All Soldiers should be respectful of the privacy and modesty concerns of others. However, transgender Soldiers are not required or expected to modify or adjust their behavior based on the fact that they do not “match” other Soldiers.

The Army's "transgender"-affirming documents are startling in the degree to which they: 1) cater to a tiny percentage of “gender-non-conforming” Americans (in 2011, the pro-LGBT Williams Institute estimated that just 0.3 percent of the population, or 700,000 adults, was “transgender”); and 2) risk alienating the privacy and conscience rights of a much larger pool of Army soldiers in the name of providing "dignity and respect" to the severely gender-confused.

The new guidance is fueling calls by conservatives for the Armed Forces to ditch President Obama’s “transgender-inclusive” policy in the military, announced late in his term by then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter. The pro-“transgender” policy, which was never voted on or fully debated in Congress, had been slated to go into full effect July 1, allowing open recruitment of gender-bending people.

Late last month, the Associated Press reported that Defense Secretary James Mattis agreed to postpone full implementation of the Obama “transgender” policy for six month. Mattis reportedly rejected a request by the Army and Navy (which oversees the Marines) to delay it two years.

"After consulting with the service chiefs and secretaries, I have determined that it is necessary to defer the start of accessions for six months," Mattis said in a June 30 memo sent to service chiefs and secretaries. "We will use this additional time to evaluate more carefully the impact of such accessions on readiness and lethality."

AP reported:

“According to officials familiar with the internal discussions, the [military] chiefs believe the extra six months would give the four military services time to gauge if currently serving transgender troops are facing problems and what necessary changes military bases might have to make. “They said Navy officials were ready to begin enlistment in July but asked for a one-year delay, largely to accommodate a request from the Marine Corps for more time. The Navy secretary also oversees the Marine Corps. The Army and Air Force wanted a two-year delay to further study the issue, they said. “Already, there are as many as 250 service members who are in the process of transitioning to their preferred genders or who have been approved to formally change gender within the Pentagon's personnel system, according to several defense officials.“

Socialcons: just end the policy

Social conservatives are complaining that Secretary Mattis is too solicitous of the LGBT agenda and that the “transgender” policy should be scrapped entirely rather than “studied” while soldiers are forced to endure morally offensive, politically correct “training” to accommodate gender rebels.

Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Missouri, chairwoman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, offered an amendment to the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to stop the Obama “transgender” military policy, calling it “ill-conceived” and unfair.

“This policy is costly and a threat to our readiness. The deployability of individuals going through the sex transition process is highly problematic, requiring 210 to 238 workdays where a soldier is non-deployable after surgery,” Hartzler said in a June 29 press release. “This recovery time equates to 1.4 million manpower days where transgender personnel cannot deploy and fight our nation’s wars, therefore relying on an already stressed force to pick up the burden.

“It makes no sense to purposely recruit individuals who cannot serve,” she said, noting that people with “lesser physical issues,” such as flat feet, bunions, asthma, and sleep walking, have been denied entrance into the Armed Forces or special military units like JAG (Judge Advocate General’s Corps). “This is a senseless and highly unfair double standard.”

Hartzler honed in on the high cost of “sex-reassignment surgeries” and procedures: “By recruiting and allowing transgender individuals to serve in our military we are subjecting taxpayers to high medical costs, including up to $130,000 per transition surgery, lifetime hormone treatments, and additional surgeries to address the high percentage of individuals who experience complications.”

She said “transgender” surgeries alone could cost U.S. taxpayers $1.35 billion over the next 10 years — money with which the DoD, comparatively, could purchase: “13 F-35's, 14 Super Hornet F-18’s, 2 B-21 long-range strike bombers, 8 KC-46's, all A-10 wing replacements or increased end strength of our troops.”

Popular prime-time Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson called Obama’s defense secretary a “coward” for going along with the policy admitting gender-confused servicemembers, and implied the current Defense Secretary, Gen. Mattis, should end the program. (Some are reporting that Carlson called Mattis a coward, but it appears he was referencing Obama’s defense chief, not Mattis.)

“You know this is a political sop to an interest group that the administration was afraid of. Nobody called them on it, because everyone was too embarrassed and didn’t want to be called a bigot or something,” Carlson said while debating former Obama speechwriter Patrick Granfield on Friday.

“Shouldn’t every decision make it a more effective fighting force for the sake of the country it protects? This does not do that. It wasn’t made with that question in mind. It was made for other reasons, and that’s why you guys all should have resigned when they made you do this,” Carlson told Granfield, who worked under Ash Carter at DoD.

In an article June 15 calling on Trump to end the Obama “transgender” military experiment, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said, “With ISIS torching its way across the Middle East, our troops shouldn't be torn between its role securing America and securing the Left's radical social agenda. The administration needs to decide: Does it want an army of cultural guinea pigs or a lethal force defending America? Because the latest crises prove that our military can't — and shouldn't have to — do both.”

Army says men can change gender yet still possess male genitalia

Another PowerPoint slide for the Army’s “transgender” training states that a soldier’s “gender transition” is complete when the individual “has completed the medical care necessary to achieve stability in the preferred gender.”

It states, “The care required to transition is individualized and often does not include surgical treatment.” In other words, a biological, gender-confused male soldier can “transition” to achieve “administrative status” into a “female” soldier while still possessing his male genitalia.

The Army guidance continues:

“Gender Marker Change: Once gender transition is complete and the Soldier’s gender marker in DEERS is changed, the Soldier is expected to adhere to all military standards associated with the Soldier’s gender marker in DEERS and use billeting, bathroom, and shower facilities in accordance with the DEERS gender marker.”

Translation: the same biological male soldier, now identifying as a woman but with his penis intact (and likely brandishing artificial, hormone-induced breasts), would be allowed to shower, bunk and use the restroom with real female soldiers.

That does not sit well with Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness (CMR).

“The Army Directive orders all personnel to accept transsexuals having a new ‘gender marker’ in bathrooms, showers and other private areas, showing zero concern for the feelings of women exposed to ‘gender pretenders’ taking advantage of the situation,” Donnelly writers in a new CMR special report calling on Trump and the Military to “Revoke Problematic Transgender Policy Directives and Instructions” to the troops.

James Hasson, writing in The Federalist, which first reported on the Army document, writes, “The force-wide presentation sheds quite a bit of light on the implications of the rule change on transgender service members. The policy prioritizes subjective feelings over combat-readiness and inverts military order by placing the needs of individuals over the well-being of their units.”

Under the sub-headline, “Watch My Genitals While I Urinate,” Hasson writes, “The [Army] changes also affect drug-testing procedures. DoD Instruction 1010.16 requires urine specimens to be ‘collected under the direct observation of a designated individual of the same sex as the Service member providing the specimen.’ To be blunt, [natural female] ‘observers’ must watch the urine sample leave the tested soldier’s body and enter the collection cup.”

Call Congress

The American Family Association (AFA) is calling on its millions of followers to support the support the Hartzler Amendment to the NDAA “to put an end to the Obama administration's transgender military mandate.”

In its online letter to Congress, AFA Action states: “Congress needs to pass an amendment that:

“Bans recruitment of people who identify as transgender, “Secures conscience protections for service members opposed to transgenderism and transitioning efforts, and “Prevents my tax dollars from being used for sex reassignment surgery and hormone drugs for changing a service member's gender.”

Writes AFA: “Urge your U.S. Representative to vote for Congresswoman Hartzler's amendment to put an end to the Obama administration's military transgender mandate or call your U.S. Representative at (202) 224-3121.”