Former Vice President Joe Biden’s promise to provide special protections to LGBTQ activists would include lifting what the Associated Press (AP) calls President Donald Trump’s “ban on transgender military service.”
An AP article published Sunday noted Biden’s anticipated sweeping changes to Trump’s adherence to the science of biology.
“Among the actions that Biden pledges to take unilaterally, scrapping Trump’s transgender military ban would be among the most notable,” AP reported.
The report included a comment from Nicolas Talbott, a “transgender man” who is working with a transgender rights attorney seeking to rescind the “ban.”
“I look forward to being allowed to re-enroll in ROTC so I can continue to train, keep up my fitness to serve, and become the best Army officer I can possibly be,” Talbott said.
However, as Breitbart News reported in November, Trump’s 2018 policy relating to transgender individuals in the military “does not exclude transgender people from the military.” In other words, Trump has no “transgender ban.”
What Trump’s policy does require is that military personnel be identified by their biological sex. The rule bars soldiers from changing their official record from male to female and vice versa.
In 2018, a Pentagon survey stated:
Low rates of full sex reassignment surgery and the otherwise wide variation of transition-related treatment, with all the challenges that entails for privacy, fairness, and safety, weigh in favor of maintaining a bright line based on biological [male or female] sex — not gender identity … After all, a person’s biological sex is generally ascertainable through objective means.
In September, a handbook for members of the military titled “Procedures for Service Members and Prospective Applicants for Military Service,” also stated:
Transgender Servicemembers … may not obtain a gender marker change or serve in their preferred gender … Continued service is contingent on the Service member not seeking gender transition, the Service member being willing and able to serve in his or her biological sex, and the Service member being able to meet applicable deployability requirements.
…
A commander may employ reasonable accommodations to respect the privacy interests of all Service members.
The Pentagon transgender fight is not about crossdressers in the ranks. It is about whether a gov't agency will declare that each man is a woman when he says so — b/c gov't would forbid public recognition that males & females are different & complementary https://t.co/wx6H9xE1aB
— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) March 1, 2019
Thus, while the Trump policy does not allow members of the military service to change their gender on official documents, they are free to say they are “transgender.”
In the same Breitbart News report, Elaine Donnelly, founder of the Center for Military Readiness, commented, “You can’t just pretend that biology can be ignored and someone can change their sex just by saying that ‘I’m something other than what I really am.’”
Donnelly added that pressing female members of the military to treat men like women in private restrooms and locker rooms “is just not fair.”
“The policy does require that if you say you’re transgender, you must still live in your biological sex, and if you’re okay with that, you can serve in the military,” she explained. “That’s why it’s not about the status of transgenders as a class.”
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