Pentagon to Lift Ban on Transgender Troops

The newest change that will disrupt and harm our military has to do with an interest group Obama wants to protect and promote. It makes absolutely no sense unless there is either a desire to harm and humiliate the military, or there are deep-seated issues that are unknown to the general population at this time.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to announce the repeal of its ban on transgender service members July 1, a controversial decision that would end nearly a year of internal wrangling among the services on how to allow those troops to serve openly, according to Defense officials.

Top personnel officials plan to meet as early as Monday to finalize details of the plan, and Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work could sign off on it by Wednesday, according to a Defense official familiar with the timetable but who spoke on condition of anonymity because officials were not authorized to speak publicly about it. Final approval would come from Defense Secretary Ash Carter, and the announcement will be on the eve of the Fourth of July weekend.

The plan would direct each branch of the armed services over a one-year period to implement new policies affecting recruiting, housing and uniforms for transgender troops, one official said.

Carter announced last year that the ban, which affects a fraction of the military’s 1.3 million active duty members, would be lifted unless a review showed that doing so would have “adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness.”

That phrase raised concerns on Capitol Hill where a key lawmaker questioned whether an “honest and balanced assessment” could be made of the effects on “military readiness, morale and good order and discipline” under Carter’s guidelines for the review.

Rep. Mac Thornberry, the Texas Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee, called on the Pentagon in a letter last July to provide a range of information on the impacts of repealing the ban.

Among the questions Thornberry asked:

“What would be the projected cost of changing the transgender service policy? To what extent would military barracks, ship berths, gym shower facilities, latrines, and other facilities have to be modified to accommodate personnel in various stages of transition and what would be the projected cost of these modifications?” Thornberry wrote.

He also asked about how far the Pentagon would go to provide medical treatment for transgender troops, “including behavioral health treatment, cross-hormone therapy, voice therapy, cosmetic or gender reassignment surgery and other treatments?”

“Consistent with that philosophy, when we learned DOD was looking at new policies on the service of transgender individuals, the Committee posed a number of questions to DOD,” he said. “In particular, there are readiness challenges that first must be addressed, such as the extent to which such individuals would be medically non-deployable. Almost a year has passed with no answer to our questions from Secretary Carter. Our top priority must be warfighting effectiveness and individual readiness is an essential part of that.”

Several issues relating to repeal of the ban have proven to be contentious, according to officials familiar with the review but not authorized to speak publicly about it. One sticking point has been how long transgender service members would have to serve before being eligible for medical treatment to transition to the other gender.

Any changes to the military makeup should be designed to improve the skills and readiness of our forces, but this does the exact opposite. Under President Bill Clinton, the military had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuality, which made sexual orientation a non-issue, meaning any sexual preference was permissible, but discussion of sexual preference was not. That seemed about right since it neither promoted nor punished homosexuality, so it did not affect military readiness or preparation. Obama quickly disassembled that policy.

Obama also insisted that military preparation and training must include aspects that take into account global warming or climate change, a questionable theory at best, but one that the military will throw hundreds of millions of dollars at, also with no net improvement as a fighting force. This is a farce, especially given the scarce resources that the military must manage in order to be the best fighting outfit there is.

Now he wants the military to give voice training therapy and wardrobe training to men who want to be women and women who want to be men along with their very expensive physical “reassignments.” This is beyond outrageous, but since Obama has done his best to replace the real, trained senior military leaders with soft, obedient lackeys, we will continue to see a hollowing out of our military and a new and less prepared recruit. Obama’s presidency has been a disaster from start to finish, and he is winding up his time with new and more preposterous actions and getting away with them all. Hopefully this country be able to survive his last seven months without completely collapsing.

Source: usatoday.com