I just read this morning about the Pentagon considering whether transgender people ought to be allowed to serve openly in the military. The following is my opinion. To save you hate-filled, closed-minded, belligerent types some reading (God forbid!), here's the short version:
I don't know and even if I did it wouldn't matter.
Now that we have that out of the way and the nasty folks have left us in peace, we can get down to business. First, in the interest of disclosure, I don't really understand what transgender means. I have this compulsion to understand things, how they work, what makes them tick, etc. I believe transgender means that a person who was born with the body of gender A feels like they are actually gender B? That doesn't really make sense to me personally, but I'll just count myself fortunate that I don't feel conflicted about my gender. I'm certainly not making the case that other people don't feel that way. I only know what it's like to be one person and therefore won't conjecture what it's like to be a different person.
Instead I will talk about something which I do know a bit about: National Service. When I was an adolescent the military appealed to me largely because of propaganda and the straight-faced proclamations by adults everywhere that members of the military are Heroes. It seemed all too easy- get paid to be a dangerous good guy, fight bad guys, and receive universal respect for the rest of your life all in exchange for a little risk of death and dismemberment. So I signed up. I had the test scores to do any job in the military, but I was interested in only one thing. Army Infantry. This was 2004, when Saddam was still on the loose, we were still "liberating" the Iraqis from his tyranny, and the Weapons of Mass Destruction were still presumed present in Iraq. Upon my graduation from the Infantry Training Brigade in Fort Benning, GA I received the first 3 awards that any soldier enlisting in the Army at that time received. These were the Army Service Ribbon (granted to everyone upon graduation from Basic Training), the Global War on Terrorism medal (granted to everyone during the war on terror), and the National Defense Service Medal (granted to everyone serving during a time of conflict).
Even though these decorations were universal (not awarded to me based on my own merit) I felt immense pride in wearing them for the first time. Maybe not as much pride as I felt for my sky-blue Infantry shoulder cord and blue-backed crossed rifles, but pride nonetheless. I felt this pride, not because of who I was or what I'd done, but rather because they were given to me as recognition of my participation in something which (I believed) was noble, good, selfless, and worthy. This is a unique feeling, and if you've never experienced it, you may be wise to refrain from assuming that you can imagine what it feels like.
So how does this tie in to the subject of transgender servicepeople? The ongoing conversations about homosexuality in the military and women in combat roles have revolved mainly around two points: civil rights and competence. The prevailing argument has gone something like this:
"I have the right to be free from discrimination based on (sexual orientation/gender), and I can do the job as well as anyone else. So let me in."
I could talk about these two issues at length, but that would derail me from making a point that I feel is more important. The reason that national service has been venerated in our society, the reason that I felt proud of those silly bits of colored fabric on my chest, is because it has always been associated with the willing sacrifices, made by citizen soldiers, of their own personal interests in favor of the best interests of something else. Those courageous few who have had the occasion and the fortitude to sacrifice their lives that their comrades-in-arms might live have often been honored with our most esteemed decorations, for the spirit of their sacrifice is the spirit of service.
In civilian America, where we have grown fat, litigious, thin-skinned, and entitled, a very different spirit presides. This is the spirit of self-veneration. Many of us have come to believe that we are so precious and the world is so filled with threats to our self-evident value that we have a Moral Obligation to fight against these threats. This spirit gives rise to proclamations of "I". "I am a Homosexual, and I will not be quiet!". "I am a Woman and I deserve the right to fight the enemies of my country in ground combat!". Now, I don't disagree with these proclamations on their own merits. They are perfectly reasonable assertions in the society of the "I". I merely submit that they are irrelevant in the spirit of National Service.
National service (in the military specifically) asks that we provide the finest soldiers we are able, as they will have to compete in the most violent possible contests with the finest soldiers of other nations, often with the very highest stakes. And national service expects those soldiers to do what is best for a squad, or a company, or an army, or a nation rather than for the self. In fact, in the spirit of national service the interests of the self are often relegated to the very bottom of the hierarchy of interests served. It is this quality that builds the unassailable fortress of esprit de corps, the unbreakable bond of brothers-in-arms, and the willingness to march forward toward death and destruction which is so foreign to the spirit of the "I".
The personnel needs of the military are constantly in flux, as they mirror the real and perceived threats present in the world. In peacetime or a "small war" the military may turn away a would-be recruit for insufficient civilian education (as one example), while in a crisis they may levy conscription without regard for educational attainment. Frankly, if you are blind, have missing limbs, oppressive illnesses, or an irreconcilable psychological profile, the military probably doesn't have any use for you. You may still be a wonderful, beautiful creature, and hopefully you may achieve actualization in the world ruled by the "I", but you would not be competitive enough in the contest of War. If you are inhabited by the spirit of service, then you accept this and hold no ill will.
It is my opinion that the recent conversations about homosexuality, women, and transgender people in the military have all been driven by the spirit of "I". The proponents of reform all seek to break the military to their vision of the future, their code of morality, and their desire to enfranchise a new group of "I's". Whether or not this is best for the military has been subordinated to whether or not this is best for the people whom the military has historically had no use for. If the Pentagon was shown demonstrable proof that transgender people make the finest shock infantry on the planet, then I suspect the Pentagon would actively recruit transgender people for its ground combat forces. Likewise, if (and this is a hypothetical, not an assertion) the Pentagon believes that an all-male infantry unit is more capable than a mixed-gender unit, or an all-female unit, then we ought to leave that decision to them.
It is my opinion that if we continue to subordinate national service to the spirit of "I", then our military will be weakened. I think we ought to try to avoid this. Not at any cost, but certainly at the cost of some hurt feelings and temper tantrums. Consider, in closing, the apex predator of the society of "I". S/he is a highly paid corporate executive, constantly evaluating her/his own wealth and how best to increase it. S/he will abandon any post at the drop of a hat and cross the street to work for a competitor if s/he judges that to be in her/his best interests. Is this a model we wish to impose on our military leaders?
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