The members of the Trans service say they want to fight for their country, not for their work

When Alivia Stehlik, an adult of the army, came out as a transgender woman in spring 2017, she said that she was nervous about how her colleagues and other soldiers would react, especially because she was physiotherapist .

“You should physically touch most of your patients, and I had nerves at the start that people would be uncomfortable,” she said. However, during the eight years since its release, she said that she was “massively, pleasantly surprised by each round”.

“My patterns, the people I worked with, the people who worked for me, my patients-no one cares about what I am trans,” she added. “They just see me like Major Stehlik or Dr. Stehlik. That’s it. “

President Donald Trump signed a decree exercised on Monday to prohibit people on Monday from serving openly and to enlist in the army. Politics argues that medical and mental health care that some trans people need to treat gender dysphoria – the medical term for distress caused by a disalcher between gender identity and sex at birth – is incompatible With the high standards of the army for “preparation for troops, letters and cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity and integrity. »»

We do not know exactly how the order will affect the thousands of members of the Trans service like Stehlik. Unlike a similar policy that Trump issued in 2017 during his first mandate, this order indicates that the trans is fundamentally “conflicts with the commitment of a soldier to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in his personal life ”.

“The affirmation of a man according to which he is a woman, and his requirement according to which the others honor this lie, does not in accordance with the humility and altruism required of a member of the service,” said order.

NBC News spoke to the members of the Trans Service which could be assigned by the order, and they have all communicated a similar action plan: they will continue to do their work, and they plan to fight against the order. “I’m just resolved,” said Stehlik, who is stationed in Fort Campbell on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee, when she asked her how she has felt since Trump signed the order on Monday. Stehlik was ordered as an officer after graduating from West Point in 2008.

In the summer of 2018, just after its release, Stehlik was deployed to treat soldiers in Afghanistan for nine months. She said that this experience, combined with patches she carries on her uniform which show that she has gone to specialized combat training schools, helps her patients trust her and make her in her work.

“Trans people are just as ready and just as deployable as anyone else,” she said. “We must meet the same physical fitness standards, the same medical standards to be deployed. And even if we are talking, there are members of the trans service deployed worldwide like damage, having already respected these standards to be deployed. »»

Six members of the Trans service and two trans people wishing to initiate a complaint on Tuesday against the Trump administration on the decree.

Nicolas Talbott, a second lieutenant who served in the reserves of the army for almost a year, said that he had joined the trial because he fears the worst case: that Trump’s executive order will completely force all members of the Trans Service of the Army.

“It will have a huge impact, not only on myself personally – where I would be confronted with losing my job, losing my future career, losing all the advantages that accompany being a member of the army, which Understands my health insurance-but that would be an enormous impact on the American army itself, “he said, adding that the abolition of the thousands of trans soldiers would harm the preparation overall.

Talbott was an applicant in a trial against the 2017 Trump ban, who prevented Talbott from enlisting then. He said he decided to join the pursuit filed on Tuesday because “this is the right thing to do.” “The ultimate goal is that we do not want trans people or any other member of the minority army to have to face a new politician each time is elected in power,” he said. “Our service should not be subordinate to who has political power at the time.”

Like Talbott, it’s not the CMDR navy. The first round of Emily Shilling with a trans military ban. Shilling – which stressed that it did not speak on behalf of the Navy or the Pentagon – was released in 2019, two days after Trump’s first ban entered into force. Following the ban, she told NBC News in 2021, she was forced to live a double life: she lived as a trans woman in her personal life, but at work, she had to continue to serve as Birth sex.

After Biden signed a decree in 2021 allowing Trans to serve openly, she began to thrive, she said. She was promoted to commander, and she fought and won her medical authorization to pilot high performance jets again, which said established a precedent who allowed other members of the Trans to do the same .

Since Monday, she said, she felt like she was on a mission. In addition to serving for almost two decades, she is also president of Sparta, a plea organization for the trans members of the army and the veterans. She said she would like to have conversations with Pentagon or White House officials on what the real trans trans transfers and services look like. “We have served openly for almost a decade, and we have been able to show that all the original arguments to explain why the transgender service should not be open is simply false,” she said. “Our medical costs are minimal. Our declining time is minimal, and the effect on unitary cohesion, morale is nonexistent. »»

Since last week, Trump has published a number of decrees targeting trans rights. A few hours after its inauguration, he signed a prescription declaring that the American government will only recognize two sexes, men and women, and that “these sexes cannot be modified and are founded in a fundamental and incontestive reality applications requiring a change of marker sexual.