WoLF Statement on Transgender Military “Ban” Reversal

Image via HendersonStateU on flickr

Women’s Liberation Front strongly opposes Biden’s recent executive order revoking 2017 and 2018 guidance on the conditions under which individuals who identify as “transgender” may serve in the US military.

The policies of the previous administration, despite being labeled a “trans military ban” fairly and reasonably addressed the reality faced by service-members who experience gender dysphoria or undergo medical intervention to resemble the opposite sex. The 2017/8 policies also reflected best practices to protect the women bravely serving our country in uniform, a population already at heightened risk for male violence including sexual assault. The revocation of these policies is a dangerous denial of the reality faced by our female military personnel.

The 2017/8 policies put in place by the previous administration did not, despite widespread claims to the contrary, ban trans-identifying military personnel from serving. The final policies were based on a 48-page memo by the Secretary of Defense which outlined the health and readiness concerns associated with various aspects of trans-identifying service members. The memo concluded that trans-identifying service members may continue to serve in the military so long as their mental and physical health remained stable enough to meet the standards applied to all other service members. Like all other military personnel, trans-identified military personnel were expected to serve with their “biological sex.” In short, the memo essentially stated that trans-identifying members of the military must meet the same standards as the rest of the population to be qualified to serve.

The 2018 memo also noted that allowing individuals to serve as the opposite sex could be “perceived as discriminatory” towards women and would “present a serious safety risk.” It also outlines numerous complaints filed by female service members who have been forced to share private quarters, locker rooms, and showers with men who identify as women.

Biden’s executive order, “on Enabling All Qualified Americans to Serve Their Country in Uniform” is misleadingly named. All qualified Americans, including trans-identified ones, may already serve in the military. 

What Biden’s revocation actually does is to allow unqualified Americans, those with disqualifying mental or physical ailments, to be permitted to serve in the military as long as the ailments are related to their identity as transgender. The revocation also allows men to serve with women in the exact ways the 2018 expert panel decided were discriminatory and unsafe. 

Women now make up 20 percent of the Air Force, 19 percent of the Navy, 15 percent of the Army, and almost 9 percent of the Marine Corps. Close to 8,000 cases of sexual assault in the military were reported to the DOD in 2019. 

Natasha Chart, WoLF Executive Director, said:

“Less than a week into his role as Commander in Chief, President Biden has betrayed the thousands of brave women who signed up to serve our country, and who can't freely speak their minds about this decision. These women must now shower and change with men in a job where they are already unsafe and at risk of assault. Beyond the risk this new policy poses to our country’s military fitness, anyone who cares about the treatment of women in the military should be outraged.”

WoLF plans to push back against this policy, in addition to Biden’s other executive orders on gender identity which harm women and girls across the country. You can take action today by writing to the Biden administration and asking them to rescind their recent executive orders on “gender identity.”

Update: 1/28/21

There has been some understandable confusion about the term “transgender ban” due to some very misleading tweets from Donald Trump in 2017 regarding that policy. President Trump did say that “the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military.” However, as many within his own government pointed out at the time, and as we explained in detail above, his tweets contradict the well-sourced, well-researched, well-considered findings and conclusions from the 2018 DOD memo which outlined the legitimate concerns about soldiers with serious mental health conditions and the safety of female soldiers in mixed-sex living conditions. 

It appears that Trump was not clear on what it means to be “transgender,” as his tweets illustrate a commonly-believed myth – that a transgender person is defined as somebody who experiences gender dysphoria, takes hormones and has surgeries to alter their appearance, and more or less “presents” as the opposite sex. But as gender identity advocates have been telling us for years, the single determinative factor that makes a person “transgender” is their declaration that they are transgender.  Many who identify as transgender experience no clinical distress and do no “transitioning.”

In 2017, Trump ordered the Secretary of Defense to conduct a policy review regarding the military service of trans-identified individuals. This 2017 order was blocked by an injunction. The final policy put in place by the administration was based on the 2018 memo put forth by Secretary Mattis, as we stated above, to meet the anti-discrimination standards laid out by the court.

The 2018 DOD memo did find that individuals with a diagnosis of “gender dysphoria,” a mental illness, would not be considered qualified to join the armed service without a waiver (pg. 2). This is consistent with other mental illnesses that are disqualifying, such as body dysmorphia, bipolar disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder (pg. 20). The memo cites concerns about suicidality among the high-risk population, and the fact that military service can be a contributing factor to suicidal ideation (pg. 25).

However, the DOD also stated that members who already had a diagnosis of gender dysphoria may be retained, “provided they are willing and able to adhere to all standards associated with their biological sex” and remained deployable for 12 months (pg. 42). The report also found that there were an estimated up to 10,000 service members who already identify as “transgender” (pg. 13), and yet only 994 (pg. 22) had a diagnosis of gender dysphoria that would have been disqualifying if they joined under the new rules. 

Even under the 2018 rule, there was an explicit rule against discrimination based on “gender identity.”  A male soldier who openly “identified” as a woman, who used opposite-sex pronouns for himself and who “presented” a “feminine” appearance, was not disqualified from service.  He was simply not permitted to share communal showers and barracks with female soldiers, which is perfectly reasonable. He would also be disqualified if he had health conditions which compromised his ability to serve.

Gender identity advocates have been telling us for years that being treated as if you were the opposite sex is a critical psychological need of trans-identified people, and the ACLU tells us that a dysphoric male soldier who cannot shower with female soldiers is at heightened risk of suicide. However, suicidality is generally disqualifying for military service.

Likewise, the 2018 memo included things like cross-sex hormones and cosmetic body alterations as possible disqualifying medical conditions, joining other health issues such as thyroid disorders, diabetes (even if well-controlled), reproductive disorders such as PCOS, abnormal pap smears, and even severe PMS, allergies, asthmas, or chronic sinusitis, sleep apnea, or a stutter past childhood – to name just a fraction. You are also disqualified if you are too tall or too short.

We hope this additional context clarifies any confusion around the actions taken by the previous administration, and what Biden’s Executive Order reversing these policies has actually done.