WASHINGTON, D.C., July 5, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has granted a requested six-month delay instead of two years in implementing an Obama regulation requiring the military to recruit transgenders.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff asked for the extra time to review how integrating men who dress like women and vice versa could affect military readiness. Mattis wants the branches of the military to submit their assessments by December 1. He gave a tentative target for implementation on January 1, 2018.
The delay is not as long as the two-year postponement the Air Force and Army originally wanted. In the meantime, transgenders already in the ranks can continue to serve, per a 2016 Obama administration policy.
General Joseph F. Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted last month that “some issues” with transgender recruiting were “identified” by various branches and he expressed the desire to work them out “before we move forward.”
But Mattis guarantees nothing. In fact, he stated in a memo that he “in no way presupposes an outcome” but will consider the reports of the various branches according to the standard of military “readiness and lethality.”
“Since becoming the Secretary of Defense, I have emphasized that the Department of Defense must measure each policy decision against one critical standard: Will the decision affect the readiness and lethality of the force?” Mattis said.
“How will the decision affect the ability of America’s military to defend the nation?” Mattis asked.
Army Lt. General Jerry Boykin (Ret.), who now works for the Family Research Council, considers the delay wise. Like other pro-marriage and pro-family leaders, he criticizes the Obama gay military agenda, which in his assessment will “undermine unit cohesion and morale.”
“Personnel who identify as transgender are expected to receive exceptions to policies and medical requirements that their peers will still be required to meet,” Boykin pointed out. “These exceptions may be applied to policies about everything from physical and mental fitness standards to dress and presentation standards, and they create an unfairness that will undermine unit cohesion and morale.”
The former Delta Force commander implied hope that the new Commander in Chief will do away with the transgender integration order completely. “The Pentagon is right to hit the brakes on a policy that will fail to make our military more capable in performing its mission to fight and win wars,” Boykin said. “It’s good that the nation’s military leadership realizes what the American people realize. This policy makes no sense.”
The Palm Center’s Aaron Belkin praised the Obama transgender decree and criticized the Trump administration delay. “Secretary Mattis’ decision to prolong the enlistment ban will have the effect of requiring (transgender) applicants to lie in order to join the military, as was the case under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” Belkin said.
CNN reported that many congressional Republicans think allowing open transgenders in the military would be detrimental to unit bonding and therefore effectiveness. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Missouri, introduced a ban on openly transgender troops but said she will also delay her bill to see what the branches conclude.
A Rasmussen survey revealed that nearly one-third of American voters thought integrating openly transgender people would be bad for the military and about one-third thought it would have no impact, but only 23 percent said they thought such a policy would be “good.”
The Obama administration issued the transgender recruitment order in mid-2016 and targeted it for full implementation on July 1. In preparation for transgender recruitment, the Obama administration took away the authority to discharge transgenders from immediate military superiors, making it difficult to release transgenders whose gender confusion was negatively affecting servicemen.
Obama not only ordered the integration of transgenders into military service but decreed that the American taxpayer will fund major surgery for servicemen who want their genitals cut off and fake vaginas to be implanted in their place. Obama likewise authorized the military to pay for women to have hysterectomies and penis implants.
Boykin criticized the Obama tax-funded transgender surgery policy. “It makes no sense to spend more than a billion taxpayer dollars on new body parts for anyone who joins the military and identifies as transgender,” he charged. “After lost deployment and other costs are factored in, taxpayers could be on the hook for as much as $3.7 billion over the next 10 years.”
RAND (Douglas Aircraft’s “Research and Development”) Corporation estimated that 140 people in the military already want to chemically alter their gender, plus an additional 130 want “sex-change” operations.
Critics of tax-funded “sex-change” surgery note that battle-readiness is diminished after the surgeries, which RAND explained require 21 days of medical leave plus at least 90 days of medical disability. Even more recovery time is needed for men to undergo the sex change to a woman, making a soldier non-deployable for at least 135 days. RAND also acknowledged that in some cases complications from elective genital surgery might make a soldier unfit for duty permanently, as up to 20 percent of men undergoing “vaginoplasty” have serious complications.
“Spending billions of dollars on transgender surgeries and treatment plans, when the military has other priorities that would actually ensure its effectiveness in war, is irresponsible,” the general added.
“I think this is a gross misuse of military medical dollars that should be used to make our military forces deployable or to help those who are wounded or injured while they are deployed,” Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty Executive Director and veteran Ron Crews told USA Today.
Eighteen other countries, including England, Australia, Canada, and Israel, allow transgender people to serve openly in their militaries.
Throughout his presidency, Obama refused to uphold federal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law signed by Bill Clinton regarding homosexuals serving alongside those of the same sex. Obama unilaterally lifted the ban on open homosexuals in every branch of the military in 2011. He also lifted a ban on women in combat alongside men in 2015, a move that statistics show has led to an increase in rape and pregnancy among servicemen and women.