« Massachusetts governor calls for quartering illegals in local homes | Empty suit, empty suites: Joe Biden's government of empty buildings »
July 19, 2023

Defense Department on the road to disaster

By Andrea Widburg

In June, the U.S. Army posted an article on its website celebrating a pudgy, mentally confused man—a major—who claims to be a woman “living authentically.” People who care about our nation’s defense were horrified to learn that the military is in the hands of people like Major Jones. A DOD memo reveals that Major Jones is not alone. Instead, the DOD is bending over backward to accommodate so-called transgender service members without any regard for the degradation in military readiness.

We know a few things about people who claim to be “transgender,” and none of them can be good when it comes to military readiness. People who claim to be transgender have an inordinately high suicide rate (that includes attempts), something unchanged whether they’re pre- or post-transition, and whether they’re living in an accommodating society or not.

So-called transgender people, including those who risibly believe they’re no gender at all, are much more likely than the average population to suffer from substance abuse, depression and anxiety, and domestic violence. Those who have turned to the medical community to help them create the illusion that they are members of the opposite sex and, to that end, have taken hormones that are toxic for them or gone through mutilating surgery have a host of health problems: sterility and sexual dysfunction, increased risks of cancer and heart disease, bone fragility, and horrific post-surgical problems that last a lifetime.

Image: Major “Rachel” Jones, the “pride” of the Army. Public domain U.S. Army photo.

And of course, if you reject (as I do) the notion that people are “born in the wrong body,” which would mean transgenderism is a real thing, every person claiming to be “transgender” or “non-binary” is, by definition, mentally ill. Looked at from the perspective of reality, not fantasy, people claiming to be transgender are the last people you’d want in an effective military force that has as its mission defending America from enemies with guns and tanks. This person, whose fealty is to himself, not his nation, is not a military asset:

Nevertheless, the Biden DOD not only wants such people in the military, it will do anything to keep them there. Jordan Schachtel, writing at The Dossier, has made public, in summary form, some of the contents of a February 2023 memo from the Defense Health Agency detailing the “CARE OF SERVICE MEMBERS WHO IDENTIFY AS TRANSGENDER.” If America’s security were the DOD’s top priority, that care would mean dismissing them from the military and encouraging them to get solid psychiatric treatment.

However, we live in America in 2023, so the military has very different priorities. According to Schachtel, the 34-page memo reveals what the taxpayer-funded military is doing for its “transgender” troops:

1.Taxpayer funded “care” for transgender service members includes:

  • speech/voice therapy
  • cross-sex hormones,
  • laser hair removal,
  • voice feminization surgery,
  • facial contouring,
  • body contouring,
  • breast/chest surgery (“upper surgery”)
  • genital mutilation surgery (“lower surgery”).
  • Psychological counseling

2.Service members who identify as transgender may receive a waiver for grooming and uniform standards.

3.Service members who identify as transgender may receive an indefinite waiver for physical fitness standards. This waiver often becomes a de facto permanent situation, and the transgender identifying service member just has to renew the exemption request every six months.

4.Service members who identify as transgender will be considered “non-deployable” for up to 300 days while taking hormones for their “transition” period. Again, given that these hormones are often required for life, this may render the transgender identifying service member as permanently unable to deploy.

In other words, if you’re “transgender,” you get free surgery, waivers from grooming and uniform standards (just look at Major Jones), indefinite waivers from physical fitness standards, and freedom from being deployed to some of the world’s more challenging environments. They get the perks; young women in the military get the loss of privacy and safety.

Not only does this institutional insanity damage military readiness, but it is also a huge enticement for so-called transgender people to enlist so that the taxpayer will be on the hook for expensive surgeries and lifelong hormone treatments and remedial care for the damage these people have done to their bodies. Because they are being excused from all the downsides of military service (physical effort and risk), enlisting becomes a no-brainer. VA, here they come!

China, meanwhile, wants us to know that its military is full of incredibly fit fighting men training for battle (against Taiwan):

Degrading America’s military capacity, standing alone, should be grounds for impeaching or firing every senior-level member of the Biden administration, including Biden himself.

UPDATE: Your military's gender policies in action:

If you experience technical problems, please write to helpdesk@americanthinker.com