As military services await guidance following President Donald Trump’s announcement last week via Twitter of a ban on transgender service members, the commandant of the Coast Guard is speaking out, saying he has no intention of leaving transgender Coast Guardsmen out in the cold. Speaking on the topic for the first time at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Tuesday morning, Adm. Paul Zukunft said his first action upon becoming aware of Trump’s
tweets was to have his office reach out to all 13 members of the Coast Guard who have self-identified as transgender. “I reached out personally to Lt. Taylor Miller, who was featured on the cover of The Washington Post last week,” Zukunft said. “If you read that story, Taylor’s family has disowned her. Her family is the United States Coast Guard. And I told Taylor, ‘I will not turn my back. We have made an investment in you, and you have made an investment in the Coast Guard, and I will not break faith.’ READ MORE
Why would you want a group with a 40 percent suicide rate in the military?”DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) – A former transgender person says allowing transgenders in the military would be “devasting to morale” with over half of them suffering from secondary mental health issues.
Church Militant spoke with Walt Heyer, a former transgender woman and founder of the website SexChangeRegret.com and author of several books, including A Transgender’s Faith and Genders, Lies and Suicide, about why gender dysphoria would be so devastating to the military.
Heyer says, “Medically speaking, there is no such thing as gender dysphoria.” He explains that the “proof” of the condition is the patient’s subjective “feelings” that are subject to change over time, saying, “There is no way to objectively test or prove gender dysphoria.”
He says “100 percent of the time” the person can find the exact moment when they started having these feelings within four to seven questions. He noted that it is “usually traumatic, stressful, uncommon events that create deep emotional and psychological wounds.” The anxiety caused by these “horrific events” needs to be addressed by mental health professionals, not “treated” with cosmetic surgery and hormones.
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Louie Gohmert, U.S. congressman from Texas, decried Congress’ failure to ban funding for transitioning in the military in a statement in July, with the financial and burdensome accommodations ultimately leading to Trump’s ban.
Gohmert says, “Obama left our military weaker than at any time since before World War II,” noting as well that the moral divide of our country has never been greater.
He added, “This nation is engaged in an undeclared war with some of the most ruthless, evil, heinous, malevolent, tortuous, destructive enemies in the world’s history.”
Heyer agrees, saying, “The military is a fighting force, not a gender clinic.”
Gohmert further explains military personnel undergoing transitioning are “undeployable” for a minimum of two years and during that time commanders “are not provided a replacement for that slot in their unit.” He adds, “Regrettably, this policy prevents others, willing and able, from fighting in their stead to protect this nation.”
Gohmert says:
We were advised in a Republican conference meeting that the projected 10-year cost will be $3–4 billion that could be used to actually defend our homeland and liberty. That projected cost is before the military becomes known as the place to have an all-expenses paid sex-change surgery, including meals and housing.
Heyer notes that gender dysphoria has been studied since the early 1900s and suicide rates for patients have been relatively constant at 40 percent for the past 100 years. He explains that 60–70 percent also suffer comorbid disorders that are not addressed by a cosmetic surgery. The emotional issues and increased rates of suicide are conditions that are “not helpful in a fighting force.”
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Walt Heyer
Heyer told Church Militant that sex-change surgeries often fail, not because of medical complications but because the person still has “comorbid disorders that surgery did not treat.” He has spent the past 12 years helping others de-transition from the “radical treatment” the medical community continues to push even “in the absence of scientific evidence that people are better off in the long run.”
Heyer notes that sex-change regret usually appears 5–15 years after transitioning. He says, when they transitioned, they were told they were “enlightened,” complimented and affirmed and even with all the affirmations, they were still unhappy and anxiety-ridden. Heyer quipped that when someone wants to de-transition, “people think you’re nuts.”
Heyer lived as a woman for eight years and eventually came to accept his birth gender. He explains that sex-change surgeries are “only cosmetic,” saying “it is biologically impossible to change a man into a woman or a woman into a man.”
“It is biologically impossible to change a man into a woman or a woman into a man.Tweet
Detransitioning is a very public admission of a mistake, Heyer said, noting the “magnitude of that mistake is horrific.” He explained that the hardest thing a transgender person must address is not the initial wounds or the admission of the mistake, but the deep regret they feel when they “recognize that their body parts are so mutilated, the damage is so complete, that they cannot live the way they now want to.”
Heyer notes that 94 percent of young people grow out of their strong feelings for transitioning. His advice is “have your strong feelings, you’ll grow out of it.”