The CBC is showering us with rainbow glitter in its news announcement of the historic presence of the Chief of Defence, Staff General Jonathan Vance, alongside Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau at the Ottawa Pride Parade.
Meanwhile, in the United States, President Trump tweeted he would reinstate a ban against transgendered people in the military. The most cited argument against such a ban is from the Rand Corporation, stating that the presence of transgendered people in the military has:
“little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness, or readiness.”
The main reason: Trans people simply aren’t that large of a population. Based on RAND’s estimates, trans troops make up around 2,450 of the 1.3 million active-component service members — a fraction of a percent of the US military. While some trans service members would seek treatment, RAND pointed out that only a small subset would: “Estimates derived from survey data and private health insurance claims data indicate that, each year, between 29 and 129 service members in the active component will seek transition-related care that could disrupt their ability to deploy.”
RAND concluded this will have a very tiny effect, if any, on military readiness, finding that “the readiness impact of transition-related treatment would lead to a loss of less than 0.0015 percent of total available labor-years in the active component.” In comparison, “in the Army alone, approximately 50,000 active-component personnel were ineligible to deploy in 2015 for various legal, medical, or administrative reasons — a number amounting to around 14 percent of the active component.”
Note the rationale supporting transgendered people in the military is the small number of transgendered people in the military.
Also note that a major grantor of the Rand Corporation is the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation, and that a prominent member of the Pritzker family is the transgendered former military member, James/Jennifer Pritzker.
Not surprisingly, law suits have been launched on behalf of the "civil rights" of transgendered people who want to serve in the US military.
I would think the most important aspect of whether transgendered people ought to be allowed to serve in the military relates to their psychologic fitness. What is a military's position on undiagnosed or misdiagnosed anxiety disorders regarding fitness to serve? Are individuals with other untreated or mistreated anxiety disorders, disorders such as somatoform or eating disorders, allowed to serve? If so, then it would appear inconsistent to ban transgendered individuals. However, if untreated or mistreated anxiety disorders are considered to put individuals at risk, for themselves or their colleagues, when they serve in the stressful environment of the military, then it would be cruel and unethical to fight for the right for transgendered people to have the right to fight.
