By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press
Washington (AP) – Military services rushed on Friday to nail the details and assemble new advice to start withdrawing transgender troops from the Force.
Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, in a memo published Thursday evening, restored the orders issued earlier this year which declared that “expressing it a false divergent gender identity of the sex of an individual cannot meet the rigorous standards necessary for military service”.
His new order gives troops in active service until June 6 to identify himself as transgender and voluntarily begins to leave the service. The National Guard and reserve troops have until July 7.
Army Major Alivia Stehlik, who served in the infantry and is now a physiotherapist, will be eligible to retire in three years but does not want to be forced to be a member of the Transgender Service.
“I still have a job to do,” she said. “My order is expecting that I present myself and that I am an officer and that I do my job because I am the only person in my unit who can do what I do.”
Military services rushed to publish new advice to help commanders browse the process, including what to do in more complex situations, as if one of the troops is deployed, at sea or may require special orders or funding to meet deadlines.
Here is an overview of the problem and what is going on:
What happens with the ban on transgender troops?
In 2015, the defense secretary of the time, Ash Carter, addressed the idea of raising the ban on transgender troops and allowing them to serve openly, which raised concerns among military leaders. He set up a study and, in June 2016, announced that the ban was over.
Restoring this ban has long been an objective for President Donald Trump.
Six months after his first mandate, Trump announced that he was not going to authorize transgender people to serve in the army “in any way”. This triggered a fight of about two years to hammer the complex details of how it would work, even if the legal challenges have flocked.
The Pentagon finally exhibited a policy that has enabled those who are currently used to stay and pursue plans for hormonal treatments and gender transition if they had received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. But that has prohibited new enlistment of anyone with gender dysphoria who took hormones or who had gone to another sex.
Gender dysphoria occurs when a person’s biological sex does not correspond to their gender identity.
This ban was canceled by the president of the time, Joe Biden. When Trump resumed his duties this year, he ordered Hegseth to revise Pentagon policy on transgender troops.
At the end of February, Pentagon leaders ordered services to set up procedures to identify diagnosed troops or be treated for gender dysphoria before March 26. And that gave them 30 days to start withdraw these troops from the service.
A wave of prosecution blocked the ban. But Tuesday, the Supreme Court judged that the administration could enforce the ban, while other judicial disputes are taking place.
How many transgender troops are there?
There are approximately 2.1 million active, daycare and reserve troops.
According to the Ministry of Defense, around 1,000 soldiers have voluntarily identified as transgender and will now begin the process of leaving the army.
Defense officials claim that the troops began to identify themselves after the order of February, to go to their commanders and to deposit forms. This process stopped at the end of March due to the proceedings, but the officials said on Friday that they dust off these files and discovered how to proceed.
However, the number of troops can be affected exactly is complicated, and the military services are struggling with the way of identifying them and withdrawing them all.
Defense officials said 4,240 soldiers were currently used in active service, the National Guard and the reserve have received a gender dysphoria diagnosis and that they argue that, recently last year, around 3,200 soldiers had undergone hormone therapy affirmed by the sexes from 2015 to 2024, and around 1,000 gender surgery.
Previously, however, the estimates of transgender troops have oscillated between 9,000 and 12,000. And they could go from people who have not been officially diagnosed or who do not take medication to those who take medication, have undergone surgery or who are going to their favorite sex.
In March 2018, the defense secretary at the time, James Mattis, published a memo with unprecedented details on the data. He said that at that time, 8,980 soldiers identified as transgender and 937 had received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Is military separation voluntary or not?
Hegseth’s latest memo establishes two distinct processes, but the details remained a little uncertain.
The members of the service who voluntarily identify with the commanders would probably be able to receive a certain type of separation salary, which could include a period of leave that has not been used or bonuses that have not yet been paid.
After June 6, the ministry will go through medical records to find other troops that have been diagnosed or processed for gender dysphoria and force them to leave the service. These troops may not qualify for part of this additional salary.
Pentagon policy, as written earlier this year, would allow limited exemptions.
This includes transgender personnel seeking to enlist who can prove on a case -by -case basis that they directly support warning activities, or if an existing service member diagnosed with gender dysphoria can prove that they support a specific war need for war, never passing clinically significant distress. “”
If a renunciation is issued, the applicant would always be confronted with a situation where only his biological sex was recognized for the bathrooms, the dormitories and even in official recognition, as being called “sir” or “madam”.
What does that mean?
Over the years, transgender troops have been used effectively in all services, according to military leaders, who have declared to the congress that they saw no problem. They have gone basic recruited members for the special elite operations forces.
Troops and militant groups argue that the abolition of transgender soldiers also more broadly affects their units and their military preparation.
Stehlik, who has been in the army since she went to the American military academy in West Point in 2004, made a transition in 2017, while he was used in the army. She said that for her and others who had not taken their stage on 20 -year retirement, being expelled would mean a major loss of advantages, including retirement and health insurance.
Sarah Klimmm, a transgender navy who served for 23 years, retired when the end of the ban was announced in 2016, so could never be used openly.
Now a political analyst for minority veterans in America, she said that over the past nine years there have been no problem of unity cohesion that some feared.
Klimmm said that escape members were going to harm military preparation. “The ranks of senior officers have enlisted-it’s a lot of time and money dedicated to them,” she said. “You are not content to fill it.”
The writer Associated Press Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
