Trans military guidance 'coming soon'

It’s been nearly a month since President Trump issued his infamous three tweets about banning transgender service in the military. Now it appears that the president is moving forward with his plans.

Transgender activist Allison Blaylock told The Gayly, “We are looking at hurting ourselves because someone is uncomfortable with something they know nothing about.”

The president’s July 26 tweets said, “After consultation with my generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U. S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”

Today, it appears that guidance will be sent to the Pentagon “in the coming days”, according to the Wall Street Journal. “The White House is expected to send guidance to the Pentagon in coming days on how to implement a new administration ban on transgender people in the military, issuing a policy that will allow Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to consider a service member’s ability to deploy in deciding whether to kick them out of the military.”

Among the memo’s directions:

• The military is to stop admitting transgender people

• The Pentagon should consider a transgender service member’s ability to deploy when determining whether to expel them

• The Pentagon is to stop paying for transgender troops’ medical treatment regimens.

That information was provided by CNN earlier today.

On the deployment issue, Blaylock said, “As far as deployment abilities, someone who is completely authentic themselves is going to be in a better deployment situation. They will be happy and will be better soldiers.”

Blaylock is a veteran of the Marine Corps.

She pointed out that trans people who were hiding that fact might be inattentive to a situation or distracted by their circumstances. She said the military is forcing people back into the closet, and that, “By not letting you be authentic, it means ‘we don’t care’ and you may not come back from your deployment.”

At a time when the military is looking at ramping back up, “Now we are going to cut 15,000 service members,” she said.

Blaylock mentioned a friend who left the military after eight years because he was transitioning. “Now they have to find somebody to replace him, somebody who had eight years of service. You can’t buy eight years of service. It doesn’t exist in an 18 year-old recruit.”

According to the media reports, the Department of Defense will have six months to implement the new policy.

The policy which Trump is rescinding was issued by Defense Secretary Ash Carter last year, allowing transgender military members now in the military to continue to serve. It was to allow transgender people to enlist beginning this year on July 1, but that date was pushed back six months.

Blaylock concluded, “The people who are in the military and came out, they are red flagged. It’s the end of their career. And if they want to find another government job after they leave the military, they will be red flagged for that as well.”

Transgender activist Gianna Meranto is a veteran of the US Air Force. She commented on the focus on the costs of surgery and that having surgery might make someone unfit for duty. “People always want to bring up the surgeries. That is up to the person themselves because many don’t get the surgery.

“I was unable to deploy for a year because of eye surgery, and had a waiver to continue to serve while I recovered from it.

“This is the only thing they have left, that it costs too much for the surgery and are unfit for deployment.”

It had nothing to do with her being transgender.

President Trump apparently bought into estimates that military medical costs would rise over $3 billion over a decade for transgender medical care. The actual estimated costs, according to a Rand Corporation study, would be between $2.4 million and $8.4 million each year, an extremely small percentage of the military healthcare budget.

Meranto, who served three deployments, to Kuwait, Iraq and Turkey, said, “You can’t say it’s okay to say we will allow people to serve in the military and then turn around and say, no, we can’t. We just want to do what we need to do, serve our country and live. How is that not compatible with military life?”

Copyright 2017 The Gayly – August 24, 2017 @ 11:45 a.m. CDT.Updated at 12:20 p.m. CDT