Transgender Individuals Should Be Allowed To Serve Openly In The Military.

Con has presented the exact same arguments others have when debating against progressive changes to military regulations, that the armed forces have neither the resources nor obligation to change for an individual. I will now refute his arguments, citing peer reviewed work in the field, and using historical references. Argument #1Transgender and Transexual people present unnaceptable medical risks to the military. There is a difference between a transgender individual and a transsexual one. Gender is a role that society bestows upon a person, a person's sex is what they keep between their legs. Not all transgender people decide to get surgery of any type, in fact most never have the courage to transition or come out publicly. A transexual is usually considered transgender as well, but the opposite is not always true. Con was correct in that transgender individuals require certain health care in order to serve openly, but so do many other non-transgender soldiers. The study I mentioned in round one, which was headed by the former surgeon general of the United States, had this to say:"The prohibition on medically necessary cross-sex hormone treatment is inconsistent with the fact that many non-transgender military personnel rely on prescribed medications, including anabolic steroids, even while deployed in combat zones, and is based on inaccurate understandings of the complexity, risks and efficacy of such treatments. " [1]33% of the United States Army is on prescription medication, and nearly a quarter of those are on dangerous psychotropic drugs [2], other actually include HRT patients being treated for non transition issues. The denial of hormone replacement therapy has nothing to do with the stratification of risk, because we clearly already allow other service members access to medications which are much, MUCH more dangerous. I ask the audience to recall the case of Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who killed 16 Afghan civilians in the middle of a Ambien induced blackout [3]. Hormone replacement therapy is nothing compared to some of these drugs, why then do we deny it to soldiers? Argument #2Finite resources and quality of recruits. Another argument against providing transgender troops with health care is that doing so would place an undue burden on the military healthcare system, and that "there are other applicants who do not require these expenses". Except, that simply isn't true. We let people into the military with pre-existing medical conditions all the time, in fact in 2010 the Army alone granted 15% of it's new recruits a medical enlistment waiver of some type [4]. Our nearest allies, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, have determined that the risk of deploying transgender service members on cross-sex hormone treatment is low, and post- transition individuals from Canada and the United Kingdom have completed tours in Afghanistan. The US has deployed a post-operative transgender member of the Military Sealift Command repeatedly on Navy ships. In addition, not providing HRT or SRS exposes the government to additional costs in the form of veteran healthcare. Doctors at the Veterans Affairs hospitals rely on the medical files obtained from the military in treating new veterans. A vet who was never diagnosed or treated for gender dysphoria in the military will only have worsening symptoms, and could "cause some to treat symptoms with alcohol or drugs, which could lead to substance abuse or dependence. Research has confirmed, as well, that policies that force individuals to conceal their identities can have significant mental health consequences. [1]"Caring for individuals that self-medicate with narcotics, or attempt to harm themselves, is very expensive. It costs $45,000 a year to put someone through dialysis for kidney failure, not counting normal hospitalization costs which can total an additional $30,000 [5]. We pay more each year treating depression that we do on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly $83 billion [6]. Preventative care like hormone replacement therapy typically costs $100 a month, the money that would be saved from not having to treat just one of the above two cases would pay for the HRT costs of one person for LIFE, let alone annually. The cost of denying treatment to servicemembers and veterans can also be measured in the number of lives lost every year to suicide, drug overdose, and related organ shutdown; nearly 8000, or 12 every day. Transgender service members are part of that number, and ignoring them won't prevent their deaths. Argument #3Troops coping with policy changes. Since 1776, and all the way up to the Korean war, official Army policy was that minorities were incapable of serving with whites, that the result would be pure chaos and disorder, that morale would drop. It wasn’t until 1948, when President Truman signed executive order 9981 abolishing segregation in the military, that African-Americans were finally held as equal to whites in the military. It took nearly two hundred years for people to stop accepting segregation with blind faith, it took even longer for the bans on gay service members to come down. In every case, lawmakers and generals alike screamed from the top of their lungs about the devastating consequences of breaking down these barriers, and in every case they were wrong. We are especially fortunate in this case however, in that many other nations have already decided to end bans on transgender service, even going to far as to provide HRT and SRS to their soldiers. Among these nations are Canada, Australia, and Great Britain. We have the opportunity to study how they’ve dealt with transgender integration and learn from them how to implement a similar system. These nations have deployed trans soldiers to Afghanistan since the beginning, and they did so with no issues [7]. Argument #4Chelsea Manning. Private First Class Manning knowingly and willingly communicated secret military intelligence and diplomatic cable files to Julian Assange, the editor of the wikileaks project. By doing so she betrayed the oath she took to defend the constitution of the United States, undermined operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, exposed service members and local intelligence contacts to considerable risk of retaliation, and hampered her nation's ability to conduct effective diplomacy. PFC. Manning didn't leak those documents for money, she didn't leak them to uncover war crimes, she didn't leak them because of some mental defect. She felt sleighted by the United States military, and just wanted to watch the world burn. It is very unfortunate that she has become the poster-child for transgender service members, because the rest of us actually took our oaths seriously. Don't compare us to a traitor; hundreds of American service members over hundreds of years have given information to the enemy, one of them happened to be transgender. In closing, Providing healthcare to trans soldiers is no less risky than what we do for other soldiers, and can actually decrease the overall long term load on the healthcare system of the military and VA. Transgender recruits shouldn’t be turned away if non-transgender recruits are allowed in with similarly unique conditions. I think I’ve proven my point, thankyou again for taking the time to read this debate and remember to vote Pro.1 - . http://www.palmcenter.org...2 - . http://www.infowars.com...3 - . http://www.pbs.org...4 - . http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...5 - . http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...6 - . http://www.huffingtonpost.com...7 - . http://www.sldn.org...