US seeks to learn from allies' experience about transgender troops
theguardian.com, Monday 20 October 2014


Transgender military personnel from Sweden, New Zealand and Australia listen to Corporal Natalie Murray of Canada speak at an event about transgender troops in Washington. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Image

A campaign to allow transgender troops to serve in the US armed forces has received support from overseas military allies who travelled to Washington to challenge arguments about its potential impact on operational effectiveness.

Eighteen countries around the world allow transgender personnel to serve openly, and officers from Nato allies such as Britain, Canada and Sweden joined others from New Zealand and Australia at the American Civil Liberties Union to discuss how the policies work in practice.

Three years after the Pentagon lifted remaining restrictions on lesbian, gay and bisexual troops,the ACLU is hopeful of similar progress for the transgender community, especially after the secretary of defence, Chuck Hagel, called for a “continuous review” of the current policy last May.

The Palm Center, a San Francisco research group which co-hosted Monday’s event, estimates there may already be up to 15,000 transgender personnel in the US military – defined as someone who does not identify with the physical gender that they were assigned at birth – but they are currently at constant risk of dismissal on “medical grounds”, especially if they seek to transition to a different gender as many have now done in allied militaries.

Major Donna Harding, a nurse in the Royal Australian Army who transitioned from male to female, said that allowing and supporting such practices was vital to improving the mental health and effectiveness of transgender troops.

“Being able to be open and authentic is the key to being able to perform your job, so you are not having the stress of having to hide,” she said.

The argument was echoed by Squadron Leader Sarah Maskell, who promotes equality and diversity at the Royal Air Force in Britain: “Without doubt, the more mature our inclusive policies become, the better our operational delivery becomes because we have got people who are being themselves, they are being authentic in the workplace without having to have personal challenges alongside that.”

She also argued that many of the practical questions that come up, such as where people who are transitioning should shower, were easily dealt with.

“I chuckle when the shower question comes up because it’s something that comes up whenever we talk about transgender personnel: it’s always about showers,” said Maskell.

“I’m obviously missing something … we respect privacy, so we have joined showers but they have cubicles. So somebody who has a religious observance to protect their modesty uses that shower as well. For us it’s not an issue. It doesn’t affect combat readiness whether there is a shower screen, it’s just about normalising diversity and respect for others.”

Some of the transgender troops who spoke at the event said important issues remained in overseas military forces too.

“There is still a lot more to be done,” said Corporal Natalie Murray, who became the eighth member of the Canadian forces to transition in 2003, pointing to recent privacy violations in Canada.



Others defended the relatively common practice of providing funding for surgical transition procedures under military or national health cover.

“Surgical treatments are relatively cheap when you compare them to the lifetime costs of not treating, such as depression, self-harm and suicide,” said Harding.

In the US, transgender service personnel such as Chelsea Manning, the US army soldier who released hundreds of thousands of secret documents to WikiLeaks, has filed a lawsuit in a federal court that charges her military jailers with violating her constitutional rights by denying medical treatment for gender dysphoria.

But campaigners are hopeful that the rapid acceptance of gay, lesbian and bisexual equality in American society – seen most recently in a sweeping expansion of states that allow same-sex marriages – can soon be matched by greater official tolerance of transgender people.

And unlike the battle to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” laws outlawing openly gay people serving in the military, a move to allow transgender troops may only require administrative action by the Pentagon rather than new legislation in Congress.

“In America, equality and civil rights in the military have always been a leading example for the rest of the country,” Joshua Block, a lawyer with the ACLU, told the Guardian.

“President Truman signed an executive order integrating the military based on race long before the supreme court held that segregation was unconstitutional and the same thing happened when the military repealed ‘don’t ask don’t tell’, so I think the same can be true here.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...-armed-forces?