A transgender service member in the US Navy has been granted a waiver to present as the correct gender for the first time since Trump’s trans military ban became law.
Trump’s infamous ban came into force in April 2019, almost two full years after the president first announced his intention to exclude all trans people from the military.
The Navy confirmed that a trans service member has been granted a waiver in a statement provided to CNN on Friday (May 15).
“The acting secretary of the Navy has approved a specific request for exemption related to military service by transgender persons and persons with gender dysphoria,” said spokesperson Brittany Stephens.
Stephens said the transgender service member “requested a waiver to serve in their preferred gender”, including “obtaining a gender marker change… and being allowed to adhere to standards associated with their preferred gender, such as uniforms and grooming”.
Transgender people have had a chequered history in the US armed forces. They were prevented from serving until 2016, when the Barack Obama administration put an end to the ban.
In July 2017, Trump announced on Twitter that he intended to ban all trans people from serving in the military.
“After consultation with my generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the US military,” he wrote.
“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
Trump’s ban means trans people who come out will be discharged.
The legislation was eventually enacted in April of last year – following four failed injunctions — and plunged an estimated 13,700 transgender service members into uncertainty.
Under the law, a trans person who comes out or is outed while serving in the military will be discharged, unless they agree to suppress their identity.
The Navy subsequently announced that service members would be allowed to live in their correct gender while off duty, but the US Naval Academy later said that it would bar trans students from enrolling for 2020.
Following the death of Aimee Stephens — the transgender woman at the center of a high-profile LGBTQ discrimination case pending before the Supreme Court — a different name appeared in several news articles announcing that she had died Tuesday.
The New York Times, The Associated Press and the Detroit News were among the media outlets that published Stephens’ former legal name, the male name she had used prior to her gender transition in 2013. The publication of her previous name, colloquially referred to as “deadnaming,” drew swift and fierce reaction from LGBTQ rights groups and advocates.
“It serves no purpose of integrity to publish a transgender person’s ‘deadname,’ or former name, as the @nytimes did here in Aimee Stephens’s obituary. This should be immediately revised. Aimee deserves better,” Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal organization, tweeted Tuesday evening.
“The Grey Lady should know better than this in 2020,” the National Center for Lesbian Rights tweeted later that night. “Deadnaming and misgendering individuals is wrong, and also sends a message to trans or non-binary people that their existence is not valid.”
Both the Times and the AP amended their articles shortly after.
“An earlier version of this obituary included the name Ms. Stephens was given at birth, which she no longer used. That reference has been removed,” an editor’s note in the Times obituary stated.
Times editor Patrick LaForge also apologized on Twitter and said the incident would lead to updated style guidance.
“The first published version of the article our reporter wrote did not include the name,” LaForge wrote. “It was added later in an honest mistake by editors trying to interpret what we now realize is a confusing style rule for obituaries.”
The AP amended its obituary Wednesday and included the following note: “The story has been edited to remove a former name in accordance with AP Style to use the name by which the person lived and avoid former names unless relevant.”
Lauren Easton, a spokesperson for the news organization, told NBC News that the AP Stylebook was updated in June 2019 to include guidance on deadnaming.
The stylebook, which is influential in guiding the way many U.S. newsrooms write about complex topics, now reads: “Use the name by which a transgender person now lives. Refer to a previous name, sometimes called a deadname, only if relevant to the story.”
“The spirit of the entry is to make NOT printing a person’s deadname the default; to assume a person does not want their deadname used unless they say or you confirm otherwise,” Easton wrote in an email. “And then print it only if it’s newsworthy.”
As of Friday morning, the Detroit News’ article still included Stephens’ former name.
“The reality of trans lives is that we struggle against the interpersonal and systemic beliefs that we are only putting on our genders and that beneath them lies some ‘truth’ of who we really are — and that notion fuels violence and discrimination against members of the trans community,” Strangio, who is transgender, wrote.
“To then write about a woman who is trans and remind the reader of her deadname under the pretense that what she was called at birth is important to understanding who she is today actually evokes the image of a man for readers and contributes to the insidious social understanding that ‘this person claimed to be a woman but was really a man,’” Strangio continued.
In a 2019 op-ed titled “Stuck on how to refer to trans people in the past? The answer is actually really simple,” Parker Molloy, editor at large for Media Matters for America, a progressive nonprofit that monitors the media, argued that in the “overwhelming majority” of instances, “it’s completely unnecessary to draw attention to former names or pronouns.”
“The best way to refer to a trans person — even when discussing their past — is to use whatever name and pronouns that individual currently uses,” Molloy, who is transgender, wrote.
Raquel Willis, a transgender activist, writer and former editor at Out Magazine, said in 2020, there’s not much excuse anymore for continued deadnaming in major publications: “We have to call it what it is: ignorance.”
“As a black woman I liken it — and this might get me into some hot water — but I liken it to a news reporter in the ‘70s saying ‘colored’ instead of ‘black’ or ‘African American,’” Willis said. “Sure, we can extend some grace to you not understanding, but it’s also your job to be aware of the communities you’re reporting on and what language they’re using.”
Something as simple as asking an interviewee which pronouns they use no matter your impression of their gender identity, Willis suggested, goes a long way.
So when, if ever, do transgender advocates think it is relevant and acceptable to use a trans person’s former name in a news article?
Willis said there are some “special cases where you would need to use a name that someone doesn’t currently use.”
“Someone who was a public figure, who people knew as one name, and this was about trying to educate the rest of the public about them changing their names or pronouns,” she explained.
However, once the new name of a public figure — Caitlyn Jenner and Chelsea Manning, for example — “becomes common knowledge, it is unnecessary and disrespectful to continue referring to their old name,” Nick Adams, GLAAD’s director of transgender media and representation, said in an interview with Media Matters last year.
She died at home this morning, according to her brother-in-law John Pedit.
Her case was one of a trio of LGBT+ cases the Supreme Court heard on October 8, which between them could determine whether millions of LGBT+ workers are protected under the US’s most powerful federal workplace anti-discrimination law, or whether it is legal to fire people on the basis of their identity.
In Stephens’ case, the Supreme Court looked at whether trans people are protected from employment discrimination, after she was fired from her funeral-home job two weeks after coming out as trans.
The Supreme Court is due to announce its verdict any day now – making her death all the more tragic.
According to a GoFundMe that was recently set up to financially support Stephens and her wife, she had become so unwell that she was unable to travel for her thrice-weekly “lifesaving” dialysis sessions.
According to the fundraising page, Stephens had also been “struggling” with diabetes and its complications for several years now.
Legal experts have said that her death won’t render the pending Supreme Court moot, as her estate could still recover the damages for the violation of her rights.
Aimee Stephens and Harris Funeral Homes.
Aimee Stephens, 58, worked for Harris Funeral Homes in Detroit, Michigan, for six years.
In July 2013, she informed her boss, Harris Funeral Homes owner Thomas Rost, that she was trans and intended to come to work dressed in clothing worn by women in the three funeral homes he owned.
This meant coming to work wearing a skirt suit or dress.
Two weeks later, Rost handed Stephens a letter that said “this is not going to work”, Stephens told the Associated Press.
Stephens complained to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which agreed to sue the funeral home.
A trial judge ruled against her but then a federal appeals court in Cincinnati sustained her complaint, saying that discrimination on the basis of trans status is sex discrimination.
That appeals court also separately found that she was fired because Rost had sex stereotypes about Stephens’ appearance and dress – in that, she didn’t conform to what he deemed to be female-presenting.
Rost had testified that Stephens coming to work in women’s clothes would be “a distraction that is not appropriate” for grieving families.
Rost appealed, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
Idaho governor Brad Little, the person responsible for some of America’s most transphobic laws, has appealed to the Supreme Court to avoid paying for a transgender inmate’s gender confirmation surgery.
Little filed a petition after being ordered to provide surgery for 31-year-old Adree Edmo, a trans woman who is being housed in a men’s facility in Idaho.
She is serving 10 years for sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy when she was 22, and is not eligible for parole.
Edmo was diagnosed with gender dysphoria while in prison and her condition has grown so severe that she has reportedly attempted to castrate herself twice.
Denying trans woman surgery ruled ‘cruel and unusual’.
Last year a court of appeals upheld a previous ruling that denying Edmo the surgery constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
But Little is appealing the ruling for a second time as he insists that he “should not have to pay for a procedure that is not medically necessary”.
He has vowed to “vigorously litigate” the ruling by taking it to the country’s highest court after the Ninth Circuit Court refused his request to hear the case for a third time.
“The Ninth Circuit’s decision goes against the text and original meaning of the Eighth Amendment and contradicts more than four decades of Supreme Court precedent,” Little said in a release.
“We will vigorously litigate the Ninth Circuit’s unprecedented ruling at the Supreme Court because the taxpayers of Idaho should not have to pay for a procedure that is not medically necessary.”
The state of Idaho is currently being sued by two human rights organisations thanks to a virulent anti-trans campaign spearheaded by Republican governor Brad Little.
In the midst of a pandemic, the governor signed two laws that campaigners say effectively make transgender people second-class citizens.
The first, HB509, bans transgender people from changing the gender on their birth certificates, flouting a previous a federal court ruling on the issue.
It asserts that the state will prohibit any changes to gender markers and only recognise a so-called “biology-based definition of sex” based on “immutable biological and physiological characteristics, specifically the chromosomes and internal and external reproductive anatomy”.
The second bill, HB500, bans schools and colleges from letting transgender girls from taking part in girls’ sports.
Under the “mean-spirited” law, girls whose sex is “disputed” will be required to subject themselves to invasive testing to show medical evidence of their “internal and external reproductive anatomy”.
In addition, pupils who believe they have been “disadvantaged” by their transgender classmates will be able to sue their schools for damages.
A trans police officer in Utah is suing his former employer after alleged discrimination at work drove him to alcohol and suicidal thoughts.
Taylor Scruggs had worked for the Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake (UPD) for ten years without issue, but when he came out as trans in 2015 he started to experience problems.
In a lawsuit, Scruggs alleges that his co-workers began to make snide and hostile remarks, and that a “Men Only” sign was put on a previously unisex bathroom.
The former officer says he was also deprived of help from superiors, and was lumped with “lesser assignments and busy work”.
He was also reportedly barred from accessing transition-related care under the force’s health care policy — which permits “medically necessary hormone replacement therapy” and “medically necessary genital surgery” for cisgender people but “expressly excludes coverage of such treatments when prescribed for gender transition”.
The police officer says he was discriminated against (Mark Kolbe/Getty)
Speaking to The Salt Lake Tribune, Scruggs said: “I felt really alone, like I wasn’t being supported. I would go home and not feel feel that same, ‘Gosh, you can’t wait to get up and do it all over again tomorrow’ feeling.”
Scruggs explained that the hostile treatment drove him to a stint in rehab in July 2018 — after which he says he was punished for “sick leave abuse” and later demoted. Two months later, he called a suicide crisis hotline fearing that he was going to kill himself, venting about work. He says he was fired as a result of the call in November 2018.
Former police officer wants his job back and trans-inclusive training.
In his lawsuit, Scruggs is seeking his job back — as well as new policies and training to accommodate its transgender employees.
He said: “If I can help somebody else go through this process and it not be so complicated for them, then that’s what I hope to accomplish.”
The department has said it disputes Scruggs’ allegations, but has declined to comment publicly while preparing its response.
If you are in the UK and are having suicidal thoughts, suffering from anxiety or depression, or just want to talk, you can contact Samaritans on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. If you are in the US call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
The transgender community, which is one of the populations that has been most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, has been explicitly excluded from contingency plans that seek to prevent the virus’ spread.
Sex workers have been left to their own devices during this health crisis and they can practically only count on themselves. Due to confinement, most of them can’t go out to work, and to stop working is not a choice when they live on a day by day basis and the only housing they can afford are “pagadiarios” (places for which they pay by the day.) Some of the sex workers who can’t get enough money to pay them do not have anywhere to stay during the lockdown or, even worse, they have had to live on the streets where they are more prone to get infected with COVID-19.
Different community-based organizations like Calle 7 Colombia and Fundación Red Comunitaria Trans have created initiatives to mitigate the impact of this situation.
Red Comunitaria, for example, created an emergency fund for sex workers during the pandemic. It has given — aside from safety — economic support, food and housing to thousands of trans people. However, individual private donations alone will not be enough to benefit everyone who needs it.
That is not the only problem the trans community is facing. Many different Colombian cities, including Bogotá, from April 13 have implemented “pico y género”, a gender-based measure that allows only men to leave their homes on odd days, only women to leave their homes on even days and trans people to leave their homes on those days based on their gender identity.
Although this decision was taken as a strategy to diminish both the number of people in the streets and to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, this decree makes non-binary or gender non-conforming people and the trans community more prone to violence.
The main concern with the decree is the police become the identity definer and watchdog. Their use of violence and abuse of power has been a historic phenomenon that has served to kill many people.
As of the date of this publication, they have already been numerous physical and verbal assaults against trans and non-hegemonic gender people. These include the case of Joseph, a trans man who was denied the right to enter a supermarket because the employees thought he was not enough of a “man.”
A similar situation happened in Peru, which alongside Panama also applied this measure. The government rescinded the policy after a video posted to social media showed police officers forcing three trans women to squat while they were forced to repeat “I want to be a man.”
It is understandable that a pandemic’s reality requires the adoption of measures for controlling the spread of the virus among citizens and that some of them demand the restrictions of some fundamental rights, such as freedom of movement and association. All of this is aimed to protect public health, but these policies cannot, in any moment, infringe on nondiscrimination rights.
The Colombian government must therefore listen to the voices of the most vulnerable populations during the crisis, who have been forced to endure unfair exclusion and assume the State’s responsibilities. Countries around the world must adopt mechanisms to restrict movement without using criteria that fosters additional risks for populations that already cope with structural exclusion in society because they are constantly criminalized and persecuted.
A 37-year-old non-binary person who passed away from coronavirus this week kept a heartbreaking online journal of their experience.
PJ McClelland from Florida, who died on April 11, had gained hundreds of followers as they shared their experience of having COVID-19 through daily Facebook posts.
They were originally screened for coronavirus on March 23 and sent to be tested the next day. A few days later they found out they had a positive test result. They had no underlying health conditions other than a recent diagnosis of sleep apnea.
Their update that day read: “I’m getting sicker by the day. It feels like I have a migraine, bronchitis, and the flu all at once… Don’t worry about me. I’m relatively young and healthy.
“Worry about the people I’ve been around who are EXTREMELY high risk. It breaks my heart to think I may have given this to them.”
PJ McClelland was sent home after being rushed to hospital.
They later began to develop severe chest pain and were taken to hospital by ambulance, then admitted in isolation.
McClelland wrote: “I was their first confirmed case, and I am REALLY f**king worried. NO ONE had proper PPE. They had zero N95 masks.”
However, after their oxygen levels increased to 94 per cent, they were sent home with an inhaler.
By day 10, their symptoms were still worsening, and they wrote: “I’m only sharing this because I think people need to know that not everyone has ‘minor cold symptoms for a few days’.
This is, by far, the sickest I’ve ever been. I’m writing this through tears.
On day 16, McClelland’s symptoms took an even scarier turn. They wrote: “For the last three days I’ve been coughing ridiculously often… but s**t got REAL early this morning.
“For what seemed like an eternity, but was actually a couple of hours, I coughed non-stop. Literally. I couldn’t breathe. Like barely at all. Just a gasp between coughing here and there. I was having a panic attack the entire time.
“My hands were tingling and I lost my peripheral vision. I know you’re wondering why the f**k I didn’t call 911. Idk if it was the lack of oxygen, the fever, exhaustion, or something else, but I was extremely confused/ disoriented.
“I can’t quite articulate how absolutely terrifying this ordeal was. I just wanted to breathe, and I couldn’t. It was, without a doubt, the scariest thing that has ever happened to me.”
Non-binary COVID-19 victim shared final update two days before their death.
On April 9, in what would be their final update, they said: “I can safely say this has been the longest, and some of the worst, three weeks of my life… I know I’ve said this, but it bears repeating: I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m NOT saying I’m out of the woods yet.
“I’ve seen far too many cases of people who were on the mend in the morning and died that night.”
They said they would be getting more blood tests and another chest x-ray that day, and promised to update later.
But the update never came, and McClelland passed away from coronavirus at home two days later.
Their close friend Tim Ross told Fox News: “As a close friend for many years, it was difficult to read. But I feel it was important.
“Everybody who met PJ became a friend, and it’s been evident in the outpouring of support since their passing.
Trans people in Pakistan are being deprived of support during the pandemic lockdown, according to alarming reports from the country.
Regions across Pakistan have imposed a lockdown, with the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country standing at 5,300.
Pakistani outlet The News reported concerns about the lack of support for trans people – many of whom were living in extreme poverty even before the lockdown, and have been left to fend for themselves as NGOs who previously helped them have stopped working.
Trans people ‘ignored as if we are not humans’.
Shakila, a trans woman from Peshawar, told the newspaper: “We are the most unfortunate human beings on Earth because neither the federal nor the provincial government has bothered to consider our plight.
“The government and the philanthropists are giving relief package to others, but have ignored us as if we are not humans.”
She added: “It hurt us when the federal and provincial governments announced relief packages for industrialists and government servants, but ignored the most neglected section of the society.”
Another trans woman, Nazo, also from Peshawar, told the newspaper that with work dried up and no relief available, trans people are struggling to make ends meet.
She said: “[Before], we were worried about our security, but now we are worried about food, shelter and medicines.”
Transgender people protest in Pakistan in 2019, prior to the lockdown, demanding an end to discrimination (Photo: RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP via Getty Images)
Iftikhar Shalwani, a commissioner in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, previously said that help would be provided for trans people to ensure they would not be left hungry or out on the streets.
He told the Express Tribune: “We are committed to providing them with all possible help.”
Pakistan extended free healthcare to trans people.
Prime minister Imran Khan said that his government was “taking responsibility” for trans people, who are routinely denied treatment and can face harassment or ridicule from hospital staff and patients.
The 2017 national census recorded 10,418 trans people in Pakistan, out of a population 207 million, though charities estimate there are at least 500,000 trans people.
Seven per cent of trans people in Pakistan are HIV-positive, meaning that treatment is vital to their health.
In the year since the Trump administration banned transgender individuals from serving in the military, a number of advocacy groups have challenged the policy and many active service members say they’ve been forced to choose between continued service and their dignity and basic health care needs.
When the administration implemented the ban on April 12, 2019, it ended an Obama-era policy that allowed trans men and women to serve openly and to receive transition-related medical care while enlisted.
“The Trump-Pence administration has shamefully told thousands of qualified transgender military members that we aren’t good enough and our service doesn’t matter.”
ARMY STAFF SGT. PATRICIA KING
The current policy allows service members who received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria prior to April 2019 to continue to serve in their preferred gender. Any currently serving troops diagnosed after that date must serve according to their sex as assigned at birth and are prohibited from seeking transition-related care. Prospective recruits who have received a gender dysphoria diagnosis are barred from enlisting or enrolling in military academies.
The Defense Department stands by the year-old policy, and while it is widely viewed and referred to as a “ban,” the Pentagon insists it is “not a ban on transgender persons.”
“If you are a transgender individual, you are welcome to serve,” Jessica R. Maxwell, a Defense Department spokesperson, said in an email, adding that the policy “actually prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity for accession, retention or separation.”
What the policy does, Maxwell added, is end “presumptive accommodations” for people with gender dysphoria, which she referred to as a “serious health condition.”
Ending these “presumptive accommodations,” means transgender individuals would have to forgo gender-affirming health care and serve in the military according to their sex assigned at birth, not their preferred gender, a situation that is untenable for many, if not most, trans people.
Army Staff Sgt. Patricia King, second from right, together with other transgender military members, from left, Army Capt. Alivia Stehlik, Army Capt. Jennifer Peace and Navy Petty Officer Third Class Akira Wyatt, testify about their military service before a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel on Feb. 27, 2019.Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
A number of LGBTQ advocacy groups are challenging the Pentagon’s policy and its justification for restricting the military service of transgender individuals, and five of these challenges are currently in court.
But as these cases slowly advance in the courts, prospective and active trans service members say they are forced to live with the consequences of the policy.
“The Trump-Pence administration has shamefully told thousands of qualified transgender military members that we aren’t good enough and our service doesn’t matter,” Patricia King, the U.S. Army’s first out transgender infantryman, said in a statement shared with NBC News. “Our nation’s brave service members and their families deserve better.”
History of the ban
On July 26, 2017, President Donald Trump tweeted that the U.S. military would no longer “accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity.”
“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail,” he wrote.
At the time, studies estimated that 2,450 to 15,000 transgender people were serving in the U.S. military, and a 2015 survey of over 27,000 transgender individuals from the National Center for Transgender Equality found trans respondents reported twice the rate of military service as the general population.
In a presidential memo in August 2017, Trump directed the Defense Department to “return to the longstanding policy and practice on military service by transgender individuals that was in place prior to June 2016 until such time as a sufficient basis exists upon which to conclude that terminating that policy and practice would not have the negative effects discussed above.”
The memo allowed currently serving trans members to remain, but ordered the cessation of Defense Department or Homeland Security resources to “fund sex reassignment surgical procedures for military personnel, except to the extent necessary to protect the health of an individual who has already begun a course of treatment to reassign his or her sex.”
Trump’s proposal went against the military’s own recommendations regarding transgender service members, which were arrived at as part of a policy review that began in 2015 by the secretary of defense at the time, Ashton Carter. Under Carter, a Pentagon-commissioned study concluded that there were no reasons to exclude trans individuals from military service. The Obama administration thenlifted the ban on transgender people serving in the military in June 2016, permitting those already in the armed forces to be open about their gender identities and setting a date to allow the recruitment of openly transgender individuals.
Democrats came out against the ban, as did some prominent Republicans, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam war and former POW who said in 2017 that any service member who meets appropriate military standards should be permitted to serve.
“When less than 1 percent of Americans are volunteering to join the military, we should welcome all those who are willing and able to serve our country,” McCain said.
In addition to the five lawsuits that are still working their way through the courts, lawmakers have introduced legislation and attempted to amend the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act to rescind the ban over the past year.
Legal challenges
Several LGBTQ advocacy organizations have filed lawsuits challenging the ban, and four federal courts issued orders forbidding the government to enforce it.
“Taking up resources to discharge someone who has incredible things to contribute makes no sense.”
JENNIFER LEVI, GLBTQ LEGAL ADVOCATES AND DEFENDERS
Kara Ingelhart, an attorney at Lambda Legal working on one of the cases, Karnoski v. Trump, called the Supreme Court decision “disappointing” but said the high court has not yet heard the merits of the case. She pointed to U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman’s December 2019 ruling requiring the government to turn over some 35,000 documents cited in its decision to ban trans service members. The judge said the plaintiffs were entitled to all the documents and information used to justify the administration’s restrictions on trans service members.
“We are currently in the thick of discovery and moving forward as if we were going to trial,” Ingelhart said.
Jennifer Levi, director of the Transgender Rights Project at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD, saidshe’s confident the ban will be found unjustifable.
“We anticipate trials where the court will evaluate and see quite clearly the absence of any rational justification or any legitimate justification of the ban,” she told NBC News. “There is no justification for banning a group of people from serving in the military who can meet all the generally applicable standards … It undermines the concerns for the stability and strength of the military.”
Last month, GLAD and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed anew suit on behalf of a Navy officer who has served two extended tours of duty over nine years and is now facing involuntary discharge because she is transgender. She came out as trans after the ban went into effect in April 2019, and is therefore not protected by the “grandfather clause” that permits those already enlisted to continue to serve. The current policy mandates the discharge of any service member who comes out as transgender and seeks to undergo a gender transition.
“It is just an example of just how irrational the ban is,” Levi said. “Taking up resources to discharge someone who has incredible things to contribute makes no sense.”
Serving under a ‘cloud of otherness’
The transgender military ban affects both active personnel and prospective recruits.
“It’s disheartening that the president of the United States has taken an opinion on my fitness to serve in the military without knowledge about what makes me, and so many other transgender people, just as good candidates to serve in the military,” said Ryan Karnoski, one of the plaintiffs on the suit brought by Lambda Legal.
At 25, Karnoski has an M.A. in social work and is pursuing a Ph.D. in social welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. He hopes to be given the opportunity to apply his skills to a health services career in the military.
“The ban has been frustrating, but I’m refusing to look at it like a setback,” he said.
According to Ingelhart, the ban continues to be a source of concern and frustration for clients like Karnoski.
One of the other plaintiffs in the case with Karnoski is a woman known as Jane Doe, who chose anonymity because she remains in active service. She did not come out as transgender prior to the implementation of the ban last April.
“Because she didn’t do that within the artificially imposed window, she is now prohibited from doing so without the loss of her career,” Ingelhart said. “She is not being able to make that choice for herself without risking her career and the livelihood of her family.”
While there are openly transgender people currently serving in the military, Peter Perkowski, legal director of the Modern Military Association of America, a nonprofit organization advocating for LGBTQ service members and veterans, said, “They are doing it under a cloud of otherness.”
“That’s not healthy for them,” Perkowski said. “Even though they were spared, at least for now, discharge or separation, that doesn’t mean they are not feeling the effects of this ban.”
Perkowsi said these service members are subject to mental health issues as a result, in addition to outright discrimination and even being pressured to leave the military.
Blake Dremann, an active duty lieutenant commander in the Navy and the treasurer of SPART*A, an LGBTQ military group, said those who are grandfathered in are having to deal with a cloud of suspicion as to whether they are fit to serve.
According to the latest Pentagon memo, transgender individuals may seek waivers to be able to enlist or serve in accordance with their gender identity. The waiver process has turned out to be complicated, Dremann said, as one must obtain separate waivers for gender dysphoria, another to serve as one’s preferred gender, and another to receive maintenance hormone therapy. “They take a long time,” Dremann said.
Further, many active service members he has spoken to worry about the consequences of a denial of the waiver.
“What is the course of action then? Does it go back to the member and they could ‘change their mind’ or does that immediately start discharge?” Dremann asked.
The current public health crisis highlights the costs of denying qualified people the ability to serve.
“How many trans people have left the military or chose not to join the military that would have gone into critical health care professions?” said Jennifer Peace, a transgender Army captain who has been serving for over 15 years. “With ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ we spent over $300 million from the early ‘90s to its repeal. What money are we spending now? It’s so unfortunate we are making the same mistakes.”
Thousands of military personnel are being called upon to help in the fight against the coronavirus.
“I think about the trans military service members, especially in the medical service corps, that are fighting on the front lines against the coronavirus not just here but overseas as well,” Karnoski said.
“It’s really frustrating that this issue is something they have to be focusing any amount of attention on,” he said of the trans military ban.
Next steps
The policy could be changed through the courts, but the slow nature of litigation and the current composition of the Supreme Court leads some advocates to believe redress is more likely through Congress or the ballot box.
“Our message right now is that the only way this changes is with a change in administration, but that doesn’t stop us from working with our members of Congress,” Dremann said.
Levi said, “The challenge to this military ban has just highlighted how wrong it is to exclude people because of who they are.”
Multiple transgender organisations have joined calls for the US government to provide urgent funding to support trans people through the coronavirus pandemic.
The California-based groups have written to governor Gavin Newsom proposing the creation of an Emergency Transgender Wellness and Equity Fund to address the urgent and long-term needs of the trans community.
Trans people are among the most marginalised groups in the country, the open letter explains, and face significant barriers in society which have have only been exacerbated by the coronavirus.
“The structural and institutional change that must occur to counter these barriers means an investment in trans-led organisations and services, those that are tailored to address the specific needs of TGI (transgender, gender non-conforming and intersex) people,” the letter reads.
“Because of a lack of services tailored to serve the trans community, this makes this moment especially isolating and difficult.”
There are approximately 220,000 transgender people in the state of California, many of whom are in “dire economic situations”.
The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that 12 percent of adult respondents made less than $10,000 in annual income, compared to 4 percent of the general population in that income bracket.
Add this to the fact that LGBT+ people are more likely to be vulnerable to the coronavirus, and more likely to face difficulties accessing healthcare, the need for tailored financial support during the pandemic is clear.
A specific emergency fund “would help address the immediate needs of TGI people in the midst of COVID-19, but would also help to create long-term services that would prevent the drastic impact on our community in the midst of crisis in the future,” the letter explains.
It was signed by seven groups: TransLatin@, Coalition Unique Women’s Coalition, Transgender Health and Wellness Centre, Gender Justice LA, Transgender Law Centre, El/La Para TransLatinas and the Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project.
They acknowledge that everyone is struggling in the face of the pandemic, but stress the importance of transgender people not being overlooked in relief efforts.
“When we say we are in this together, that obviously includes trans and gender non-conforming people,” Bamby Salcedo, president of The TransLatin@Coalition told Forbes.
“We as leaders in the community are making sure that we address those needs and issues, and so we invite all of us to really understand the meaning of we are in this together and how we are going to together change the narrative and the landscape of our community.”
