President Donald Trump is set to sign three executive orders on Monday involving the U.S. military, including banning transgender service members, eliminating military DEI programs, and reinstating service members discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.

  • @AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    reinstating service members discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.

    So, some idiots who won’t follow orders, are now ~4 years behind where they should be in rank, not to mention the not drilling etc since they got booted, and are an extra health risk to the unit.

    Yeah, this should do wonders for readiness.

    But it said they’ll be getting backpay, so I guess Harley, Corvette, and Mustang sales should go up.

    • @Ithral@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      -152 months ago

      In fairness, some of those people were told they’d be fine not getting it under some of the standard exceptions to vaccines. A few over medical concerns, etc… then that just ended up getting steamrolled. Not to say a bunch weren’t just displaying lawful orders, but some weren’t.

      • @AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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        112 months ago

        When I went to play in the desert they shot me full of all kinds of shit. Saying no wasn’t and shouldn’t be an option.

        • @FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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          92 months ago

          If you can do the duck walk and take the peanut butter shot, what’s another vaccine in the line of needles? Saying no means you can go work at Walmart instead

  • @floofloof@lemmy.ca
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    432 months ago

    Have they ever offered any cooked-up rationale for this? Or does everyone understand and admit that this comes from nothing but irrational hatred?

    • @meco03211@lemmy.world
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      192 months ago

      The rationale I was told was for battlefield risks. If they are on hormone treatments, there’s a risk if they are unable to obtain those while deployed somewhere. Also similar to how the military handles diabetics.

      No idea how reasonable or accurate that is. I’m not a doctor.

      • Flying Squid
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        -72 months ago

        What about the risk for diabetic troops? Should we kick all of them out of the military because of the risk of not being able to obtain insulin while they’re deployed?

        • @meco03211@lemmy.world
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          252 months ago

          Diabetes is generally disqualifying in the military. Whether it should be or not is beyond my expertise to make an informed opinion.

          • @Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            32 months ago

            Yeah, Diabetes needs careful management. Even changing meds can fuck you up quickly. Hypo (and hyper) glycemia is no joke.

          • Flying Squid
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            2 months ago

            Okay, what about all other chronic health issues that people have to take regular medication for? Are you saying that not a single one of those people is in the military and if they are, they should be kicked out?

            (Testosterone, incidentally, is something some cis men, even in the military, take regularly.)

            • teft
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              152 months ago

              The list of disqualifying factors is quite long.

              Generally speaking if you develop a disqualifying factor you’re going to be discharged. There are some exceptions and waivers for things like battlefield amputations or blindness. For those they might send you to a training unit or hell they might even keep you if you’re especially hooah. Mostly you’ll be kicked out if you aren’t perfectly healthy.

              At least that was my experience in the army.

              • @FoxyFerengi@lemm.ee
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                52 months ago

                I got diagnosed with EDS in boot camp (I dislocated my fingers and shoulder while doing pushups), they chose to not put it in my record and sent me back to my unit to complete my training. Though, that was the Navy, and we were at war at the time.

            • @meco03211@lemmy.world
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              132 months ago

              I’m not saying anything. I’m telling you what the military does. I also alluded to you that I’m not qualified to make those decisions myself. Your beef is not with me.

            • @warbond@lemmy.world
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              62 months ago

              It depends on the situation, but for the most part, people who have chronic or severe medical issues will be pulled from their unit until they recover; after which they’ll return to the same or a similar unit.

              If they aren’t eventually deemed “fit for duty” their case is presented to a medical board, where they decide if the service member should be retained on active duty. If so, the board could put restrictions on types of duty or grant various reasonable accommodations to the service member. If not, they’ll be medically discharged from active duty.

              I only really have secondhand knowledge, because I never went through the process myself, but I lost some people to it. There are appeals processes and the like, and from my perspective it seemed like a fair way to go about it.

            • @Whateley@lemm.ee
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              32 months ago

              My brother got denied enlistment into the Air Force because he has a slight tremor in one hand. What makes you believe anyone with serious chronic health issues is going get in over him?

              • Flying Squid
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                12 months ago

                Because I’m stupid and I wish people would realize that other than constantly get angry at me about saying stupid things.

    • @Ithral@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      162 months ago

      The only rationale I’ve seen consistently is that it’s expensive to care for trans people.

      I was in and diagnosed with gender dysphoria within about a week of Trump’s initial tweet saying he was banning trans people. For about 2 months there it was a bit up in the air whether or not I’d get discharged or not. Ultimately was grandfathered in.

      It’s not an issue of hormones being available in the field, you can be deployed with a years supply no problem. That said the way the policy worked is you can’t start HRT while deployed. (Presumably because of the increased burden of regular blood draws earlier on) If you were seeking to transition you needed the approval of your commanding officer, and that could be denied only if you were deployable and hadn’t deployed yet.

      There was also the option in there for your CO to basically grant you a year to go to college or something while transitioning to generally make integration smoother, so you wouldn’t be stuck dealing with second puberty and regular military service at the same time. Though I have no idea if anyone actually got that. I know at least on person who didn’t, or didn’t take it anyway.

      There’s a bunch more nuance, rules, and tricky ways people got fucked over by their commands myself included. But at the end of the day, it really caused basically no problems overall while it was an option. And frankly if you can drag a CPAP machine on deployment trans people are less of a logistical nightmare and shouldn’t make the top 10 of medical issues that actually might warrant discharge.

    • @lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
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      2 months ago

      Transgenders are different: under no circumstances can we put America’s transgenders in danger. They are far too precious to risk in combat. Like for the sake of homosexuals 16 years ago, it has been the solemn oath of every man in uniform to lay down his life in defense of America’s precious, precious transgenders.

  • @catloaf@lemm.ee
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    302 months ago

    “We believe in hiring people solely on merit, not because of who they are. Therefore, we’re going to employ only these people based on who they are, regardless of any merit.”

    • Lemminary
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      82 months ago

      Transgender service members are proficient egg poachers, don’t you know?

  • nifty
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    192 months ago

    The anti-trans angle doesn’t make sense, especially when all these people want to do is serve

    • @Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s the same shit the Nazis did to Germany - divide the population into a bunch of bite-sized subsets, and tackle them individually while the rest of the country doesn’t intervene because they’re not a member of the out-group in question. Repeat until they have absolute power.

      They don’t actually give a shit about trans people; that’s just a stepping stone.

      So, whether or not the trans community is a part of your life in any way, it’s time to resist like your life depends on it… cuz your life might actually depend on it.

      • nifty
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        2 months ago

        Trying to tell if someone is a patriot based on their race or sexual / gender orientation is fucked. There are and have been many straight, cis, white traitors of the U.S. government. It’s just insane and unreasonable to expect that just because someone is white or cis or male then they’re safe or want the best for their country. Truly magical thinking devoid from reality and facts.

  • @thesohoriots@lemmy.world
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    172 months ago

    Military finding out how important that DEI was will be a fun time. And then again when they decide not to reenlist and find that little “protected status” box is no longer on job applications.

    • Flying Squid
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      42 months ago

      I misread that as “a century of civil war,” and I was like, I sure as fuck hope not!

  • @Spacehooks@reddthat.com
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    62 months ago

    How pro trans of him to not let trans people risk there lives. Just let all those straight conservative people that don’t follow orders die instead.

    /s but it should be spun this was to make him feel uncomfortable.