"The U.S. Army has prepared extensive guidance for how to integrate transgender soldiers into its ranks, including instructions for group showers and how to respond to pregnant men, newly revealed training documents show."

So read the opening to a recent Daily Caller story.

Men showering en masse with women?  What could possibly go awry?  And it is great that it is finally addressing the age-old question of how to respond to "pregnant men."  Armies down through history have had to deal with that delicate situation.  (Some historians now believe that the German Wehrmacht would have taken Stalingrad and Moscow in World War II if so many of its men hadn't gotten pregnant.)

This became news because President Biden restored an Obama-era directive codifying service for transgender individuals shortly after taking office, despite serious questions as to how gender-related psychological issues and medical procedures may affect a person's fitness for service.  And how that may affect a unit — or army — as a whole.

The Daily Caller story said that a 2016 RAND study "pegged" the total number of transgender people in the active-duty military at somewhere between 1,320 and 6,630.  "Pegged" might not be the best term in this context.  I would have gone with "broadly estimated."

In any case, the training materials, dated August 2021, postulate a range of problems officers and soldiers might encounter in relation to transgender members.  The manuals are divided into three "tiers" and feature various "vignettes" on how to handle potentially sensitive interactions.  Tier One is aimed at staff, Tier Two at commanders, and Tier Three at individual units and soldiers.

A section of the Tier Two training materials addresses how an officer should respond when a soldier approaches "to discuss his newly confirmed pregnancy."  Yes, that has puzzled armies since the time of Caesar.

The manuals also address how to respond when a soldier questions bathing/showering with "a female who has male genitalia."  That's easy — just say "nice package, ma'am!"

They also state, "Understand that soldiers who have transitioned gender may remain susceptible to medical conditions associated with their birth gender."  Yes, because we can't repeal the laws of nature.  We can only pretend and ignore reality — which we are now doing with staggering alacrity.

President Trump had nixed the Obama-era directive that Biden has since restored.  The Trump administration had commissioned a panel of experts who found that allowing transgender individuals — with or without a history of gender dysphoria — to serve as their preferred sex would likely undermine readiness and provoke division.  But, really, how important are readiness and cohesion to an army?  Or to the nation it is supposed to serve?

Call me a skeptic, but I don't think our current or future fighting force is going to rival the boys of Pointe du Hoc or the Marines who fought at Tarawa.

No matter.  This whole "defending freedom" thing has been overrated since the birth of the nation.

What really matters is that each and every member of our armed forces knows how to act around a lady with a penis.

Image via Max Pixel.