I like this blunt statement by Robert Bateman on the subject.
These people are American patriots, they’re U.S. citizens, they’re willing to put their lives on the line, and they shouldn’t be forced to hide anything. Citing costs which are in reality utterly negligible, President Trump made a broad and sweeping announcement of this ban, 140 characters at a time. It is not only stupid, it is counter-productive.
Also relevant is this cartoon about real courage.
Perhaps, though, what Trump really wants is that “ass-licking acquiescence to power”.
Chelsea Manning convinced me to rescind my “never have heroes” policy. How incredibly lovely and positive she is on Twitter, after all that torture, and the fact that she is STILL fighting the good fight? The world needs more of her. She is an example I can only dream of living up to.
I was watching Rachel Maddow last night when I heard about Trump’s latest and greatest vitriol regarding trans people in the military. My first response was the usual visceral, fatigued anger which I feel whenever I hear of another hateful action on the part of cis people. It’s a reflex at this point. These emotions form an ever-present background noise in my mind. They’re always there. I’ve become used to cis people’s awful behaviors.
My second response was, “Why on earth would I ever want to lay my life down for this mediocre, hate-ridden country? This country wants to incarcerate and kill people like me, and everyday it orchestrates new ways to make this a forgone conclusion. Fuck this country.”
Yes, I do support and care about trans people who are trapped in the military right now. They face the horror of working in an institution which will surely turn against them once again (if it even stopped in the first place), as the GOP’s orange stain on humanity dictates the terms of trans people’s suffering. It’s terrible to contemplate the abuse they’re going to have to go through.
Nevertheless, I can’t help but see an unintended positive impact: young trans people will be discouraged from losing their lives in the next US imperialist clusterfuck. Young cis people who support trans people might also be dissuaded from supporting the US military. Both of these things are good. Let the US military scrabble around and beg for its next round of cannon fodder. Let it have personnel shortfalls. May it founder under the weight of its own violent, patriarchal bullshit.
We saw how the military and the US government abused Chelsea Manning for having a conscience and doing what was right. The US military doesn’t deserve to have a single other young life crushed and bloodied within it’s ravenous maw.
When Trump announced that the transgender ban was for financial reasons, all I could think was: “your golf expenses, asshole!” but then I realized it’s dwarfed by: “the lawyer fees that are going to be spent resolving this one in court, dipshit!” This is going to cost the US government a great deal and Mexico won’t step up to the plate to pay for it.
Never mind the practicalities, it’s a trifecta of bad: Draft Dodging Daft Donald is deploying more soldiers to Afghanistan, thereby increasing the body count and overall cost of a pointless war, while simultaneously attacking the troops morale. It’s a “15-dimensional chess-master of bad chess” performance. It’s like he’s struggling effortlessly to demonstrate that he can be more thoughtless and mean than himself.
We’re having a Clayton’s referendum on marriage equality here in Australia. The Mad Monk’s (Tony Abbott) main argument seems to be that if allow gay marriages then your sons might become daughters. Personally, I’d be proud to have a daughter like Chelsea.
Perhaps????! Only perhaps??????!! Is water wet?
These are patriots. Almost by definition, anyone who voted for Trump is a traitor to America and the constitution.
Of course Trump will never admit that she showed courage. He doesn’t understand moral courage as a category.
@cnocspeireag
Nothing wrong with “betraying” a government or piece of paper if they don’t uphold the moral principles you value. In fact it’s your moral duty. The problem isn’t that Trump voters are “traitors”, it’s that their principles are shit.
Zepplin at 8. Yes full agreement. They also found a weak spot it the system.
timberwraith @2
Two things to consider:
1. Military service is a path out of poverty for some Americans. I mean, it’s terrible that people need to put their lives and consciences on the line in order to get a living wage and medical care, but cutting off peoples’ livelihoods and prospects for the future without replacing them isn’t going to make the situation any better.
2. One traditional reason for expelling a given minority from the military is that you plan to use the military against them. I’m not suggesting that’s what Trump is planning (frankly I’d be astonished to hear he’s capable of planning anything) but it’s still worrying.
Snoof wrote:
Additionally, the act itself sends a message, “It is to be considered acceptable to discriminate against transgender folk.” This will have effects reaching far beyond those who wished to join the military. So, the bigot looking for an easy excuse not to rent to or employ a transgender person will have a ready made excuse and gets to feel like the might of the U.S. federal government is on his side on it.
@timberwraith, 2: Yeah, It distresses me that the US left can’t seem to manage to defend the rights of transgender people without joining in the glorification of soldierdom and the military. Bateman, too, can’t resist blathering about the “honor”, “loyalty” and “patriotism” in signing up to do violence to strangers at the behest of the government in exchange for money. It’s entirely tangential to the argument as well, it’s just nationalist (I’m so sorry) virtue signalling.
Snoof (#10): You know, the military as a path out of poverty is not better (actually way worse) than selling one’s kidney as a path out of poverty, yet somehow the former is glorified while the latter is illegal.
Zeppelin @12, thanks for saying that. Yes, those are all good points.
I grew up in a white working class community. I’m very familiar with how we (assigned male people in particular) were being groomed to do soldiering for the sake of those with more wealth. There was a distinct “career path” which I saw people go through: 1) join the military for not only getting out of poor economic prospects but also for guts, patriotic glory, and killing brown brown people 2) after you’re tour is up, join the police and do something similar. Did I mention the extreme racism where I grew up and how that intertwines with this grooming?
What I saw among the people who left the military was a decline: limited job prospects—except in security and policing, alcoholism, failed marriages, deepening fascistic/reactionary thinking, and so on. It wasn’t the cake ride into a good life that people make it out to be. I saw my peers regress into a state of being far less mature and healthy than before they went into the military.
The military and its culture holds great potential to destroy people’s well being and encourage the growth of reactionary perspectives.
Let’s toss aside the mass merchandising which the military has cultivated around itself. Let’s pull aside the mystique of glory and patriotism which we hide glorified violence under, and take an honest look at how the institution damages the lives of the people who work within the institution, the ways in which the institution damages larger society, and…. the really unpopular take… how the institution is mostly a tool for manipulating the world to do the US’s bidding and to do the bidding of the US’s wealthy classes via mass violence and abuse.
The military might offer a pathway out of poverty or it might very well usher in one’s own self destruction. Either way, in the long run, it serves to support the very social and political forces which foster poor economic prospects and it does so on a global scale.
No, I don’t particularly like the military… for many, many good reasons. Yes, there is a downside to discriminating against trans people in the military. On the positive side, though, I’m glad that fewer trans people might be exploited by the military. I’m glad is shrinks military’s pool of recruits ever so slightly. That’s a good thing.
Welp, that was full of typos. :/
I feel like this is really missing the point.
There are so many dimensions to the ban. Okay, so fewer people leave the military with irreparable mental scars, but this is also a pretext for discrimination in the civilian sector. The blabbing about healthcare costs is going to be directly cited in a federal directive to restore health insurance discrimination against trans people. I bet my kidney on it. I am 100% confident this will be a thing.
There is no way to spin a “win” here.
American imperialism is not going to stop because 1.4% of its forces are disbanded.
@timberwraith
On the subject of the military making people less mature and promoting a reactionary perspective: A couple years ago a study came out that showed that those who did 9 months of military service after school here in Germany (we still had the draft back then) afterwards scored lower on personality traits associated with maturity than those who did alternative civilian service instead or didn’t get drafted at all.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797611423545
“People lower in agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness to experience during high school were more likely to enter the military after graduation. In addition, military training was associated with changes in personality. Compared with a control group, military recruits had lower levels of agreeableness after training. These levels persisted 5 years after training,”
And this was just basic training, now imagine what years of drill and fighting will do to you.
I didn’t expect what I said would be accepted by people. I would have been surprised if it were.
Yes. To think that banning a marginalized group of people from serving in the military is good first requires that one not understand how the march of dehumanization and loss of rights (no matter how recently those rights were legally recognized) works. As one of the early steps, the group has their labor and choices limited. It makes it much easier to deny them the next thing and the next thing.
Focusing on the “honor” of veterans or the horrors the US military perpetuates is missing the point entirely. We’re not being saved from serving in the military. We’re having our recognition as citizens rolled back.
You can find a discussion on the military ban occurring between two people regarding the issues of anti-imperialism, anti-militarism, and transgender rights at Democracy Now. The two people come from opposing perspectives on the first two issues. Both are supportive of trans rights. Dean Spade of the Seattle University School of Law’s words do a good job of encapsulating where I’m coming from.
It’s not like I don’t find the ban upsetting. I do. However, I see this from several different angles and I felt compelled to shared an angle which I knew would be upsetting to people but I felt needed to be said anyway. I can not and will not ignore the net negative that the military represents and how that intertwines with this issue.
And, that’s pretty much all I have left to share on this matter.
timberwraith wrote:
Get off your cross. Frankly, the only thing I’m upset about is that you decided to play the martyr to protect your ideas rather than trying to actually address the criticisms aimed at them. I don’t believe anyone has argued that transgender people should enroll in the military, only that they should not be forbidden from doing so. The merits or demerits of military life do not change the fact that it’s an available career path out of poverty for a population that is frequently denied them elsewhere, and that this decision will have far reaching consequences into civilian life as well (as Siobhan pointed out).
And despite how callous it sounds, protecting transgender people from something we have little problem inflicting on cis men and women isn’t a good thing. Bringing up your criticisms of the military in the context of this ban is as hollow an argument as libertarians (not all, of course) who argued against gay marriage rights under the premise that government shouldn’t be involved in marriage at all. If you like, you can be in favor of both allowing trans people into the military, while also believing that the military is usually a caustic career choice that no one should ever pick. These are not contradictory positions despite the superficial similarities (i.e. . Opposing the former is not advancing the cause of the latter, however, and it causes active harm to a population that is already actively being harmed.