When “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed, lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members were finally allowed to serve openly, but the ban on transgender military members remains in place today. Could the more than 15,000 active transgender service members soon be allowed to serve openly?
An independent commission finds there is “no compelling medical reason” to continue the ban, and finds that President Barack Obama could end the ban without the need to go to Congress for approval, according to the Associated Press:
“We determined not only that there is no compelling medical reason for the ban, but also that the ban itself is an expensive, damaging and unfair barrier to health care access for the approximately 15,450 transgender personnel who serve currently in the active, Guard and reserve components,” said the commission led by Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who served as surgeon general during Bill Clinton’s first term as president, and Rear Adm. Alan Steinman, a former chief health and safety director for the Coast Guard.
But the AP notes there is no plan from the U.S. Military to make changes.
“At this time there are no plans to change the department’s policy and regulations which do not allow transgender individuals to serve in the U.S. military,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a defense department spokesman.
The Williams Institute reports that “transgender people serve in the military at a rate double the general population.”
Brynn Tannehill, Director of Advocacy for SPART*A, tells The New Civil Rights Movement via email that the “Elders Report validates some of the things we have seen from our transgender service members in SPART*A. Transgender people have served, currently serve, and will continue to serve – Marines, pilots, medics, foot soldiers, intelligence specialists, submariners, in every field – with honor and distinction. We are more than capable.”
Of course, the same anti-LGBT forces from the religious right — which worked overtime to try to prevent the repeal of DADT — are at the ready.
Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelly, whose group opposed the repeal of the ban on openly gay troops, predicted that putting transgender people in barracks, showers and other sex-segregated could cause sexual assaults to increase and infringe on the privacy of non-transgender personnel.
“This is putting an extra burden on men and women in the military that they certainly don’t need and they don’t deserve,” Donnelly said.
And of course, practically every statement Elaine Donnelly and her anti-LGBT comrades have made about LGBT in the military has been proven false, and the credibility of groups like the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, and the National Organization For Marriage, to name just a few, has fallen dramatically.
There’s hope yet.
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