Last week I read the title of this article (ban on transgender troops to be lifted July 1) and wrote:

• Cost? (special bathrooms, special meds, expensive surgeries, time off for surgeries)
• Tactics? (Fight in same sex unit or assumed sex unit)
• What’s the rush? 4^th of July statement?

After reading the article, it turns out that Rep. Mac Thornberry, the Texas Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee, asked some of the same questions to Defense Secretary, Ash Carter, but with greater detail. He also said he believed this to be a political move by a departing administration to the detriment of our military as many questions have gone unanswered.

It was interesting to see that the Pentagon study by the Rand Corporation estimated the number of transgenders serving in the military to be less than 2500. This varied greatly from the results that have been touted by Ash Carter and this administration. Sometimes it helps to go to the source.

Basically, this billionaire transgender vet named Jennifer Pritzker, funded a study by the Palm Center, a San Francisco University branch of Political Science, and led by Dr. Joycelyn Elders, which states that the military should reconsider its ban on transgenders. It claims that 15,500 transgenders are already serving. I wonder how they flew under the radar….. That’s just one of a few things in this article that make me scratch my head.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: Biology. Here’s their assertion: “Scientists have abandoned psychopathological understandings of transgender identity, and no longer classify gender non-conformity as a mental illness.”

The report goes on to explain that the diagnosis “transsexualism” — which is one of the specific conditions listed in the regulations banning trans service members — was replaced in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual by the term “gender identity disorder” in 1994, and once again changed to the diagnosis gender dysphoria in 2013. “While gender identity disorder was pathologized as an all-encompassing mental illness, gender dysphoria is understood as a condition that is amenable to treatment,” the report adds.

The biological reality is that humans are sexually male, female, or intersex (a person having both XX and XY chromosome pairs.

According to the report, the amenable treatment (hormone therapy, counseling, gender-reassignment surgery) would be less expensive by a transgender military member as opposed to a transgender non-military member. Huh? They claim there are 15,500 transgender people serving, yet they cannot answer for the cost
savings? Hint: It ain’t cheap, and it is time consuming.

The report also touts other countries who have successfully implemented transgenders into their militaries. For some reason, I have a hard time comparing the United States military with Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Israel, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, and the United Kingdom militaries.

Obviously, Ash Carter took this report, and ran with it. Instead of trying to dig just the tiniest bit into the actual cost/benefit of transgenders serving, or as the misleading title of this article suggests, “Working Group to Study Implications of Transgender Service”, he tasks Brad Carson, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, to lead a committee to adjust the military to transgenders serving. “At my direction,” Carter said, “the working group will start with the presumption that transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified.

Second, the secretary said, he is directing that decision authority in all administrative discharges for those diagnosed with gender dysphoria or who identify themselves as transgender must be elevated to Carson, who will make determinations on all potential separations.”

One year later, and the cash-strapped VA is ready to perform the most crucial duty   it can for the servicemen and women of this country: Gender-reassignment surgery.

The VA says the surgical procedures were not deemed to be “medically necessary” in the past and there were questions over their safety and effectiveness.

“However, increased understanding of gender dysphoria and surgical techniques in this area have improved significantly, and surgical procedures are now widely accepted in the medical community as medically necessary treatment for gender dysphoria,” the VA wrote in the notice.

If you are a diabetic you cannot serve in the military. If you become a diabetic, or flew in under the radar, you may or may not be booted from the military. After all, without insurance, meds can range from $350-$900 per month. Now go to my above link entitled cost. That cost being for an elected procedure is to be deemed acceptable.

In closing, my problem with trangenders serving in the military is that it is not proven to be cost effective, nor proven to not be disruptive.

Wow. Carter didn’t even wait for July 1^st……