Don't Ask, Don't Tell 2014: US Military Gains Support to Repeal Ban on Transgender Members
The U.S. military is increasingly gaining support to repeal the ban on transgender services, reports Al Jazeera America.
Three retired U.S. Generals issued a joint statement, saying that implementation of a repeal would not be burdensome and it would be administratively feasible to allow transgender members to serve openly.
"Implementation could proceed immediately and will be successful in its execution," Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, former acting surgeon general of the Army; Brig. Gen. Clara Adams Ender, former chief of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps; and Brig. Gen. Thomas A. Kolditz, a professor emeritus at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told AJA.
Currently more than 15,500 transgender members are in the military, but fear reparations if they are discovered due to the current ban, according to the Palm Center, a think tank at San Francisco State University.
Military fitness standards reject those with what they refer to as "abnormalities or defects of the genetalia such as change of sex" or with "psychosexual conditions," including "transvestitism" and "gender identity disorder," AJA reports.
But the World Health Organization and American Psychiatric Association do not consider transgender, or gender nonconformity, as a disorder or mental illness.
"Many individuals who do not identify with the physical gender they were assigned at birth do not suffer from clinically significant distress, and therefore do not have a medical or psychological illness," Pollock, Ender and Kolditz said in the statement, AJA reports.
If repealed, the U.S. would join 18 other nations who already allow transgender members to serve openly, including Australia, Germany, the U.K. and Israel, according to AJA.
Palm Center stated the changes to the current rules would be able to use templates from history, when groups who were previously excluded were integrated -- including minorities and gay and lesbian members.
"All military personnel should serve with honor and integrity, which means that they should not have to lie about who they are. All persons capable of serving their country should be allowed to do so," the three Generals said in their statement, AJA reports.
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