House Refuses to Ban Transgender Surgery for Troops | RealClearDefense

Considering you are a veteran, it is NOT your armed forces. It is the armed forces of those of us who get up & still wear the uniform. Some are transgender. Your good order & discipline comments were the same ones trotted out when DADT was repealed. It happened & NOBODY CARED! Good men & women could reclaim authentic relationships with their coworkers & stop hiding.

How is experimenting when it has been done by so many other nations? Our peers already do this for the most part and the snickering is mostly confined to people that are not worth emulating. you might care what some backwards and bigoted clowns think about us, I do not.

It has been over 20 years since I used the military medical system. If any of my assumptions are in correct, I apologize in advance. There are also a bunch of "ifs" in what I am stating. I am not trying to pick a fight with one side or the other, I just want to help move the useful dialog along.

If Gender Reassignment Surgery (GRS) is considered elective surgery, the broader question is should the military medical system bear the cost of elective surgery? Some types of elective surgery may seem non-essential.

_Should the military pay for breast implants? If the breast implants are performed after radical mastectomy due to breast cancer, does that change the answer? If the breast cancer was a pre-enlistment condition would the person be allowed to enlist?
_Is cleft palate surgery on a dependent child merely cosmetic, or is necessary?
_If a person is burned while on active duty, when is cosmetic surgery to fix the burns medically necessary and at what point has the military met its obligation and further corrective surgery is elective?

If GRS is considered medically necessary, then should it preclude enlistment? Should medical conditions that are currently considered bars to enlistment, be lifted; the person gets medical treatment at US expense regardless of cost, then completes training and their enlistment?

I do not know the answer to these questions. I admittedly have a singular focus, that is not politically correct; mission first. Anything that endangers the ability of a unit to complete its mission must be eliminated or mitigated as much as possible. That said, I am unconvinced that LGBTQ status in and of itself endangers the mission.

Let me illustrate my position with a different issue. If Marine A is prejudiced and cannot accept Marine B, that endangers the mission. I hope that we have come to the point where no one feels that Marine A's prejudice is valid grounds for excluding Marine B. Marine A tolerates Marine B, or gets bounced through the necessary disciplinary or administrative procedures. Using this logic, I think it is fair to say that If Marine A cannot accept Marine B, because of Marine B's LGBTQ status, Marine A is the one who should run the risk of disciplinary or administrative discharge.

But what is the budgetary tipping point, where it makes sense to accept a service member who requires a significant budgetary obligation to maintain their medical ability and availability to train, deploy, and combat? Once again, I do not know the answer. The answer may be different if the qualified candidates from some highly specialized MOS are few and far between than for an MOS that virtually every candidate can fill.

Let me again illustrate my position with a different issue. In the civilian world, having a baby is a very expensive process. Should we deny women the right to serve because if, they become pregnant it will adversely impact their availability for training, deployment and combat. I am pretty sure that issue has been decided and is no longer open for debate. Should we establish limits, perhaps LGBTQ personnel may serve, but cannot expect GRS? Would we accept similar restrictions on women, -- "get pregnant on your own dime." That dog will never hunt. So what is fair?

What is needed is a serious, adult discussion, undertaken with intellectual honesty, and without emotion, demonization, and personal prejudice.

The only thing I can offer, is that count yourself lucky, which ever side of the issue you are on, that I am not part of the decision process. Very briefly, my semi tongue in cheek plan:
__Every non-combat MOS a drafted civilian employee filled by an involuntary national draft with a minimum of 5 years public service, limited pay, limited benefits, but attractive opportunities and entitlements upon satisfactory completion of service. Subsequent enlistments would career enlistments and far more lucrative.
__Warfighters would serve longer (10-20 years) more Spartan enlistments with no marriage, no private life, and very few rights . But with substantially greater retirement benefits. Unfortunately most of our warfighters would probably be mentally "off." or we would have a combat strength of half a dozen.