{"id":1875,"date":"2019-01-24T18:48:33","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T23:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/?p=1875"},"modified":"2019-01-24T18:50:59","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T23:50:59","slug":"why-the-ban-on-trans-people-in-the-military-is-bad-for-national-security-from-someone-in-the-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/why-the-ban-on-trans-people-in-the-military-is-bad-for-national-security-from-someone-in-the-military\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Ban on Trans People in the Military is Bad for National Security – From Someone in the Military"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
I can say with 100% certainty these soldiers don’t care about each other’s junk or lack thereof.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I remember back in 2008 or so when repeal of Don\u2019t Ask Don\u2019t\nTell became imminent. I was a captain at the time, and more than a few of my\ncivilian friends asked me, \u201cHow do you feel about serving with someone who\u2019s\ngay? How do other military people feel about it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The truth was I already knew many military members who were\ngay, some even openly or not hiding it very well, and nobody cared. It\u2019s true\nas a female officer in the Air Force I might\u2019ve been surrounded by a more\nliberal demographic than, say, an Army private in an all-male platoon. But from\nmy personal experience, the question of whether gay people serving openly would\nnegatively affect the military\u2019s effectiveness was on the same level as asking\nwhether women and people of color would negatively affect the military. The\nanswer was these people were already<\/em>\nhonorably serving, so of course not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mission of the military is demographics-agnostic. Certain jobs might require more physical ability, which may favor a bigger or more masculine physique, but even those jobs are rare given our near universal reliance on technology to do most of the heavy lifting, figuratively and literally. I haven\u2019t met any trans people in the military yet because they\u2019re still pretty rare. But I\u2019m at a loss as to how someone\u2019s gender identity would affect their duty performance. It wouldn\u2019t, based on my 18 years of experience in the armed forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only drawback from allowing previously marginalized\npeople into the military has traditionally been the disruption caused by the\nin-group who disapproves for personal reasons. It\u2019s interesting to me that the\npeople who oppose letting trans Americans serve are convinced it will cause\nunrest and destroy unit cohesion\u2026the irony lost on them that the complainers<\/em> are the ones who cause\nproblems when minority groups are integrated into the military, not the other\nway around. Blaming the out-group for that unrest is as rational as blaming a\nwoman\u2019s rape on her audacity to drink alcohol while on a date rather than on,\nsay, the actual rapist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It becomes harder and harder to recruit people every year as the divide between the military and civilian population grows, as the majority of Americans watch from afar, without really caring much or understanding what\u2019s going on, while we fight and die in America\u2019s conflicts. Patriotic citizens doing things like declaring they support the troops, or thanking soldiers for their service, or offering discounts at Denny\u2019s, isn\u2019t actual patriotism (though I\u2019ll admit I won\u2019t say no to 10% off a Grand Slam). Real patriotism is making an actual sacrifice for your country. Serving in the military is one way to do that. Hoisting an American flag in your front yard is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if trans people want to serve, let them. Because we need them. I\u2019m not afraid to speak for every person in the military when I say SO WHAT if someone was born male but wants to use the women\u2019s bathroom or vice versa? NOBODY CARES. Eventually we all have to take a dump behind a bush during an exercise or deployment while our comrades-in-arms stand ten feet away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this issue isn\u2019t really about military effectiveness. It\u2019s about the soul of our nation. A country\u2019s military is broadly reflective of that country’s demographics and values as a whole. This is especially true of the United States, where we take great pride in the power of our armed forces, even as we become more disconnected from them. Allowing trans people to serve in the military would mean accepting them as legitimate and valuable members of our society. The vast majority of military members recognize inclusivity as good for our national security\u2014the more willing and able-bodied people we can get, the better. Those opposed choose to believe the tiny minority of military objecting for reasons of personal bias somehow represent the \u201csilent\u201d majority, because that minority aligns with their own biases. In that way, the issue is more than a general reflection of our country\u2014it\u2019s spot-on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember back in 2008 or so when repeal of Don\u2019t Ask Don\u2019t Tell became imminent. I was a captain at the time, and more than a few of my civilian friends asked me, \u201cHow do you feel about serving with someone who\u2019s gay? How do other military people feel about it?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Why the Ban on Trans People in the Military is Bad for National Security - From Someone in the Military","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[25,407,405,406,408],"class_list":["post-1875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-true-confessions","tag-military","tag-taking-a-dump-behind-a-bush","tag-trans-ban","tag-trans-in-the-military","tag-unit-effectiveness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Vyi8-uf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1875"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1879,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions\/1879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}