United States Military to Begin Transgender Purge From Ranks

Soldiers standing in a formation

This week in the United States, the Pentagon issued a statement ordering the US military to identify and remove servicemembers from their ranks, respectively, unless granted a waiver.

Issues in the Transgender community are always at the forefront of my mind as a member of this community myself. I took the time to read this memo, a thirteen-page document publicly released by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, which serves the Pentagon. 

Section 3.4 of this document states that all department heads (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Space Force, Coast Guard) are required to establish and implement policy and procedure in how they plan to enact this order to remove all servicemembers who "have a current diagnosis or history of, or have displayed symptoms of gender dysphoria." and are not granted a waiver by the military to be reassigned to different commands inside of their respective organizations to be separated. 

The military now has thirty days to identify, reassign, and remove all of our sisters and brothers who swore to protect our country. As a prior service member myself who separated honorably after my six-year contract, I am infuriated personally. I used to believe that as a trans person in the military, I was a unique example of how transness manifests. I enlisted in an attempt to prove not just to myself but also to the world around me that I was "man enough." And six years later, I was still a trans woman, no less. After I stumbled upon r/transveteranpipeline on Reddit, I realized not only was I not unique, but instead, enlisting is the formula most trans women took in the United States who did not come from supportive homes. So there goes my special snowflake award; I'm just like the rest of us!  

Having firsthand experience in the military and how slow and confusing the entire machine is, I can promise you all that even though some of us who are still serving domestically and abroad might find ourselves in the first "military trans purge," it will likely take the entire year just to implement the first version of the framework required to undertake a task like this with any level of integrity and validity. Be warned now, my love, mistakes will be made. 

Are you a gay man? Well…women are attracted to men, so…you must have gender dysphoria. YOURE OUT! 

Are you in a polyamorous relationship with one woman and two men? Well…no honest man would ever allow such a thing to happen; this is gender-divergent behavior. YOURE OUT!

Did you ever talk to the base mental health professional about how you wish you were born a man instead of a woman? Hmm…normally HIPAA protects this kind of stuff, but the mission comes first, so…YOURE OUT!

Although premature and very unsettling, the silver lining is that all discharges due to gender dysphoria and transgender identity are supposed to be processed as honorable. This means the veteran can still receive care from VA services and use other federally protected benefits like the GI bill and the VA home loan. So, while most military careers will end sooner than expected, their benefits should still be attached to the veteran. They can still secure new work using the VA career assistance programs and mental health programs. 

The conversation around excluding Transgender folks from participating in civil service, especially military service, has been an on-and-off conversation through many administrations as far back as I can remember, into the Bush Jr. Administration with the inception of "Don't ask, don't tell".  This new memorandum is just this year's flavor of exclusion. It's unsurprising and unimpressive, to be honest. As a service member, I must admit that I am a bit jaded by the idea of the ENTIRE United States military cooperating to do anything other than what it was created to do. 

War. 

The idea of this being successful or professionally done is laughable, but crazier things have happened, right? 

And to my brothers and sisters and supporters of all of us trans folks, I say, stay strong and slay on! They can try, but they can't hold us down. We are strong, powerful, and competent people, and together, we will get through this! 

With love. 

-Madam K.