Military blinks in campaign that would allow 'male pregnancies'

The Pentagon has delayed its social-engineering plan to allow newly enlisted transgendered people in the ranks, and one analyst says military brass "can finally exhale about an Obama-era policy they worried would crumble morale, readiness and retention."

The comment comes from the Family Research Council regarding the decision by Defense Secretary James Mattis to push back a deadline for imposing "the so-called transgender policy" on the military.

The deadline is now Jan. 1, 2018, but the policy will be reviewed before then.

According to Liberty Counsel, the "Obama-era policy would have allowed incoming service members identifying as 'trangender' to enlist if they have been 'stable' in their gender identity for 18 months."

The organization explained: "Such a policy is wide-reaching, applying to use of barracks, bathrooms, shower rooms, and coerced 'training' of military and civilian personnel. The Obama policy directly undermines unit readiness as well as religious and conscience objections.

"Then, of course, there are the practical implications – like biological men showering next to women, 'male pregnancies,' and off-duty drag," FRC explained.

Why is all this happening? In his widely acclaimed new book, "The Snapping of the American Mind," award-winning journalist David Kupelian stunningly documents – in a chapter titled "Gender Madness" – precisely what the transgender phenomenon is really all about. Prepare to be shocked.

Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, FRC's executive vice president, said personnel who identify as transgender are expected to receive exceptions to policies and medical requirements that their peers will still be required to meet.

"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," he said.

Recent polling showed only 23 percent of Americans thought the military should start enlisting transgenders on July 1, as Obama had demanded.

Mattis, who had lobbied for a delay, issued a statement just before the deadline.

"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? Put another way, how will the decision affect the ability of America's military to defend the nation? It is against this standard that I provide the following guidance on the way forward in accessing transgender individuals into the military services."

He said whatever analysis the Pentagon pursues "in no way presupposes an outcome."

Obama had dropped the transgender bombshell on the Defense Department without any systematic study of the consequences, critics charged.

"Fortunately, the military's leadership realized what the American people already do: This makes no sense," Boykin said. "With a price tag of $3.7 billion over 10 years, no one seems to understand the rush to embrace a culture change that not only undermines national security but taxpayers.

"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," he said.

FRC said that apart from the actual gender reassignment surgery, which would cost taxpayers as much as $110,450 each, FRC analyst Peter Sprigg calculated service members would also be unavailable for deployment for several months after surgery, adding $504.3 million in cost to replace them.

"Making matters worse, those who have had reassignment surgery or hormone therapy may actually be permanently non-deployable because they would require specialized medical care which may not be available everywhere in the world," FRC said. "This isn’t the business world, where decisions don't have life or death consequences. This is the U.S. military, where special treatment depletes a very real warfighting force."

Meanwhile, Liberty Counsel sent a letter last week to Fort Benning Army Base commanding officers asked them, in compliance with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Department of Defense Instruction, to exempt from "transgender directives" anyone who has religious objections.

Army personnel and civilian employees within the Fort Benning chain-of-command had contacted Liberty Counsel, seeking religious accommodation exemptions from a mandate requiring that personnel complete "transgender training" and "guidance."

"We are pleased that Defense Secretary Mattis stopped the Obama transgender policy for six months and we urge him to put an end to this Obama-inspired plan," said Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel. "The duty of military officers is to appropriately lead and prepare their personnel to serve and protect. This 'transgender' policy undermines unit cohesion, preparedness and morale. We should focus on making the military prepared to defend and we must stop using it as a place for social experimentation and coercion."

Just last week, a leading military readiness expert urged that the social engineering be revoked entirely.

The Center for Military Readiness, or CMR, released a new report titled "The President, Defense Department and Military Services Should Revoke Problematic Transgender Policy Directives and Instructions." It analyzes 15 different Obama directives and training documents that promote retention and transgender recruiting.

"The Trump administration has a mandate to restore the strength of our military and to put an end to political correctness in the Pentagon," the 27-page report states. "This will not be possible if problematic policies, issued and implemented during the Obama administration, are retained."

CMR said Obama's policies order the U.S. military to "assume the risks of retaining and recruiting a cohort of persons who are suffering from gender dysphoria – a difficult condition involving confusion about gender identity. Gender dysphoria and its treatments are among several psychological conditions that negatively affect personal deployability and mission readiness."

In an opinion piece on the issue published in the Military Times, CMR President Elaine Donnelly wrote:

It must be difficult to live life with profound confusion about gender identity. This psychological condition, called gender dysphoria, requires compassion and competent medical treatment. The military health system, however, is designed to serve purposes of national defense.

Properly understood, military medicine is a force multiplier. It should not be considered a venue for controversial hormone treatments and surgeries. Some studies, including a long-term report from distinguished medical scholars at Johns Hopkins University, have found that such transgender treatments do not reduce rates of psychological problems and suicide.

DoD instructions that politicize military medicine force commanders, doctors and nurses to approve, participate in, or perform body-altering procedures that many consider to be contrary to medical ethics or personal convictions. The only way to avoid disobeying orders is to leave the service.