Transgender People Will Be Allowed to Serve Openly in Military.

[elleng]

'Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter on Thursday removed one of the final barriers to military service by lifting the Pentagon’s ban on transgender people serving openly in the armed forces.

The decision pushes forward a transformation of the military that Mr. Carter has accelerated in the last year with the opening of all combat roles to women and the appointment of the first openly gay Army secretary. He made his feelings on ending the transgender ban clear last year, when he called it outdated and ordered officials across the military to begin examining what would need to be done to lift the prohibition.'>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/us/transgender-military.html?

[uppityperson]

1. People are just people

[gopiscrap]

2. Wow! As MLK JR said:

"The arc of the moral universe tends to bend towards justice."

[Blue_Tires]

3. epic kick

[Lucky Luciano]

4. Corporal Klinger will need a new schtick. nt

[raven mad]

5. If this had been 15 years ago..........

my best friend Sandy would still be alive.

[tclambert]

6. I always felt it was kinda stupid to risk losing a war because you won't let willing people serve.

"Sorry, you're black. Sorry, you're gay. Sorry, you're a woman. Sorry, you're transgender. None of you can join the army. Sorry, Mr. President, we just couldn't find enough recruits to defend the country. We'll all just have to learn the words to 'O Canada.'"

[LostOne4Ever]

7. Giant K&R nt

[msanthrope]

8. About time. nt

[sangfroid]

9. Wonderful News Indeed

nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

10. Thanks Obama !

[Shoonra]

11. It's tough being PC on this

It's not a question of being homophobic. It is a very serious question of military fitness. Men are counted as physically fit for military duty ... without regard to their sexual preferences. Women are counted as physically fit for military duty without regard for their sexual preferences. But TGs ... people who are essentially in-between male and female .... the Caitlyn Jenners of the world .... are they physically fit for military duty? If they were enlisted as men, and assigned to male duties, which presuppose a certain amount of brute strength and so forth, are they still fit for duty after rounds of hormone shots and so forth? I mean, we don't take people who are taking insulin, and that's just to hold them steady; should we be taking people who are taking sex hormones with a deliberate intention to change themselves in a very basic way?

I don't have any objection to accepting people for military AFTER the sex-change is complete, but I have my doubts if they start military service with one body configuration and plan on finishing as the opposite sex.

[Aerows]

12. Physical fitness is physical fitness

You have a dumb argument there. A person able to fulfill their duties is a person able to fulfill their duties if they are male, female, blue, green or purple.

This is the type of argument where someone starts off saying "I'm not phobic" but then reveals, yep, they are indeed phobic by attempting to place restrictions that have absolutely nothing to do with the ability of the person in question to perform the job.

[treestar]

13. That kind of stuff can be figured into the process

[suffragette]

15. "Male duties" Yeah, no such thing unless you count the Gannon/Guckert style work.

As for duties requiring upper body strength, many of those can also be accomplished by using leverage instead.

All soldiers need to be fit for their particular duties, being fit encompassing a range of requirements, from mental to physical.

And jobs within the military aren't as static as people seem to think. People can and do switch over to a different job for a variety of reasons.

[msanthrope]

18. Do you have medical proof of your claim? Any? Show me where TRT

isn't prescribed to active duty military, please.

[jmowreader]

14. You would believe how apeshit the Right is over this

http://cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_5e89f29a-4ef6-594f-9fa9-

Lots of idiocy about drag queens, etc., in the comments. Pay particular attention to one Forrest Mize, who I responded to. He is a Navy retiree who inflicted himself on this area, and who announced his presence here by poaching a wolf.*

Those comments could have been written on July 27, 1948 - the day after President Truman signed the EO integrating African American troops into the military.

* Forrest Mize killed a wolf in the woods a couple years ago. He claims he was walking his dogs in the woods and killed a wolf who was attacking them. In Idaho that's legal. He then skinned it out and attempted to have the hide tanned. When the taxidermist refused to accept it (because any game animal submitted for processing here must be accompanied by the tag you killed it on) he bought one, filled in a false kill date and took it back to the same taxidermist...who turned him in.

[ismnotwasm]

16. Good

A few month ago, I lost a dear friend to cancer. She was a decorated Vietnam vet. Her story of trauma and PTSD from horrid battles to realizing who and what she was is simply inspiring.

Transgender people have always served.

[The Green Manalishi]

17. I remember reading "Conduct unbecoming"

And just being flabbergasted by the fact that the man who really got the American army onto a professional basis was Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand Steuben, a brilliant and very openly gay Prussian. If only Randy Schilts were still around
. I wish he could have had a chance to observe and write about this great victory for thetransgendered!

Not by him, but a good read for this 4th
http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/07/meet-gay-man-actually-won-america-independence/2/