Military Handling Directive on Transgender Personnel Dismissals per Hegseth's Command
ZINGITA C. ROCKERWASHINGTON (AP) - The damn military services are running around like headless chickens, trying to get their shit together and boot transgender troops out of the fucking force.
Defense Secretary Pete Asshole, in a memo released late Thursday, reinstated earlier year orders that said "expressing your fucking gender identity differently than your fucking biology is pure bullshit and ain't gonna fly in the military."
His new order gives active duty troops until June 6 to claim their trans identity and begin packing their bags. National Guard and Reserve troops have until July 7.
Army Major Alivia Stehlik, who served in the infantry and is now a physical therapist, will be eligible for retirement in three years but doesn't want to be fucking kicked out because she's a transgender service member.
"I still gotta do my fucking job," she said. "My command expects me to show up and be an officer and do my job because I'm the only person in my unit who can do what I fucking do."
The military services are in a mad rush to come up with new guidelines for commanders to work through the process, including how to handle more complicated situations, such as if any of the troops are deployed, at sea, or require special orders or funding to meet the deadlines.
So, what's the big deal with kicking out transgender folks?
Back in 2015, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter thought it would be a good fucking idea to let transgender folks serve openly, which pissed off a lot of military leaders. He set up a study, and in June 2016 announced the ban was lifted.
Reinstating that ban has been a fucking dream for President Donald Trump.
Six months into his first term, Trump declared he wasn't going to let transgender people serve in the military in any fucking capacity. That started a roughly two-year struggle to figure out the fucking details of how that would work, even as legal challenges kept pouring in.
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The Pentagon eventually came up with a policy that allowed those currently serving to stay and continue with plans for hormone treatments and gender transition if they had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. But it barred new enlistments of anyone with gender dysphoria who was taking hormones or had transitioned to another gender.
Gender dysphoria happens when a person's biological sex doesn't match their fucking gender identity.
The ban was overturned by Joe Biden. When Trump took office again this year, he told Asshole to rewrite the Pentagon's policy on transgender troops.
In late February, Pentagon leaders ordered the services to set up procedures to identify troops diagnosed with or being treated for gender dysphoria by March 26. They gave them 30 days to start kicking those troops out of the service.
A bunch of lawsuits put the fucking ban on hold. But on Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration could enforce the ban while legal challenges continued.
How many transgender troops are there?
There are about 2.1 million active duty, Guard, and reserve troops.
According to the Defense Department, about 1,000 service members have fucking identified themselves as transgender and are now preparing to leave the fucking service. However, as many as 500 of them are Army soldiers, hundreds are in the Navy, and at least 50 are Marines.
Defense officials claim that troops began to self-identify after the February order, going to their commanders and filling out forms. That stopped in late March due to the lawsuits, but officials announced on Friday they were dusting off those fucking forms and figuring out something.
Still, it's fucking complicated to figure out how many troops may be affected, and the military services are having a hard time identifying and kicking out all of the fucking trans service members.
Some fucking facts
- Defense officials estimate that about 4,240 troops currently serving in active duty, the National Guard, and Reserve have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
- They also claim that about 3,200 service members have received gender-affirming hormone therapy from 2015 to 2024 and about 1,000 have received gender-affirming surgery.
- Previously, however, estimates of transgender troops have ranged between 9,000 and 12,000.
- These numbers include people who haven't been officially diagnosed, aren't taking medication, or are at different stages of the transition process.
- In March 2018, then-Defense Secretary James Mattis released a memo that said, at that time, there were 8,980 service members who identified themselves as transgender and 937 had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Separation: voluntary or not?
Asshole's latest memo outlines a couple of distinct processes, but the fucking details are still a little sketchy.
Service members who voluntarily identify themselves to commanders will probably fucking get some sort of separation pay, which could include cashing out unused leave time or unpaid bonuses.
After June 6, the department will dive into medical records to find any other fucking transgender troops who have been diagnosed or treated for gender dysphoria and fucking kick them out of the service. They probably won't qualify for that separation fucking pay.
The Pentagon policy, as written earlier this year, allows for some limited exceptions.
- Transgender people seeking to enlist who can prove on a case-by-case basis that they directly support war-fighting activities.
- Existing service members who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria can prove that they support a specific war-fighting need, never transitioned to the gender they identify with, and have proved over 36 months they are stable in their biological sex "without clinically significant distress."
If a waiver is fucking issued, the applicant will still face a situation where their biological sex will be fucking recognized for things like bathrooms, sleeping quarters, and official recognition.
What's it going to fucking mean?
Over the years, transgender troops have been fucking serving effectively in all of the services, according to military leaders, who told Congress they weren't seeing any fucking problems. They have ranged from rank-and-file enlisted members to elite special operations forces.
The troops and activist groups argue that fucking kicking out transgender service members also hurts their fucking units and military readiness much more broadly.
Stehlik, who has been in the fucking military since she went to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 2004, transitioned in 2017, while serving in the Army. She said that for those who haven't hit their 20-year fucking retirement milestone, being kicked out would be a massive fucking loss of benefits, including a fucking pension and health insurance.
Sarah Klimm, a fucking transgender Marine who served for 23 years, retired right as the end of the fucking ban was announced in 2016. She never got a fucking chance to serve openly.
Now a policy analyst for Minority Veterans of America, Klimm said that kicking out service members will hurt military readiness. "Senior enlisted and senior officer ranks - that's a fucking ton of time and money spent on them," she said. "You don't just fucking replace them."
- The policy change regarding transgender service members in the military, likely initiated by President Donald Trump, has been a contentious issue in both politics and general news.
- In Seattle, Army Major Alivia Stehlik, a transgender service member, remains apprehensive about being kicked out of the military despite her eligibility for retirement in three years.
- The Defense Department estimates that around 1,000 service members have identified themselves as transgender and are preparing to leave the service, with significant numbers in the Army, Navy, and Marines.
- Exemptions to the policy may be granted to transgender individuals seeking to enlist if they can prove they directly support war-fighting activities, or to existing service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria who can demonstrate a specific need for their service and have not transitioned to their identified gender.
- Critics argue that kicking out transgender service members not only negatively impacts the individuals but also hurts unit cohesion and military readiness more broadly, as shown by effective service by transgender troops in various military roles.
