Is President Donald Trump right to call for banning transgender individuals from serving in the military?

Yes: Trump policy would mitigate real risks

All who desire to serve their country in uniform are to be commended. That includes transgender individuals. Too few Americans wish to serve.

Of course, not all people willing to serve are able to do so. Today, only 25 percent of U.S. citizens aged 17-24 meet military entrance criteria. The most common disqualifications are physical fitness issues, including obesity, medical issues, lack of high school education or criminal records.

These standards serve two essential purposes. They help ensure that those entering the armed forces will be able to successfully complete their term of enlistment in what is one of the most physically demanding and arduous professions in America. And these standards reduce the risk that military service will cause harm to enlistees.

For example, an individual who wants to enlist but who has moderate asthma would be ruled ineligible for two reasons: He may jeopardize an entire unit’s success by not being able to contribute at a critical moment, and also because — without access to proper medical treatment — he may become a casualty.

From 2001-2003, I served as an army brigade commander. In that position, one of my responsibilities was to oversee basic combat training. The rigorous training often exposed medical conditions that had gone undetected during entrance examinations. I had to make daily decisions on whether individuals in training should be retained or released.

Typically, these new soldiers desperately wanted to stay in the service despite their disqualifying medical condition. “Isn’t there a desk job in the rear where my medical condition won’t matter?” they would ask.

Unfortunately the answer to that question, which must be the same in all the services, is “no.”

Every soldier, every service member, must be ready at a moment’s notice to deploy to a distant hostile battlefield, away from family and support, to fight and win. There is no guarantee of a continued supply of medication or medical treatment in these remote areas. And success depends on every person doing his or her job.

At the July 2016 press conference announcing his decision to open the military to transgender individuals, Ashton Carter, President Barack Obama’s Defense Secretary, spoke eloquently about clearing away barriers to service.

But rational recruiting standards must be established and enforced strictly to assure that our military can meet readiness requirements and to protect at-risk citizens from being harmed by the demands of military service.

I’m just a former soldier, not a doctor, but I am aware of survey data that indicate some 40 percent of transgender individuals attempt suicide in their lifetimes — nearly nine times the attempted suicide rate of 4.6 percent in the U.S. population as a whole.

In that same survey, 39 percent of transgender respondents reported that they had experienced serious psychological distress in the month prior to completing the survey, compared with only 5 percent of all respondents.

I can think of nothing more stressful and more likely to exacerbate a pre-existing psychological distress than combat deployments to inhospitable places.

For the first time ever, at least in part due to the stress created by more than 15 years of continuous warfare, the U.S. military is coping with a suicide rate higher than that of the general population.

It would be both reckless and immoral to allow transgender individuals to enlist in the armed forces before we have fact-based assurance that they have the mental resilience needed to survive the crucible of combat and deployments.

Before President Donald Trump’s tweets about prohibiting military service by transgender individuals, Defense Secretary James Mattis had announced a six-month pause in the implementation of his predecessor’s policy in order to assess its impact on military readiness.

Such caution and prudence seem to be the best policy option until the complete impact on readiness can be determined.

No: Discrimination is no way to make America great

When President Donald Trump tweeted that he had conferred with “generals and military experts” and said the United States “will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military,” it marked yet another misinformed episode in his tenure as commander in chief.

Let’s start with the unprofessional way Trump made the announcement. It became clear shortly after his tweets that the generals did not know this was coming or, at the very least, that it would be coming at this time.

Trump’s on-a-whim approach was disrespectful to the very people he needs to actually carry out the policy, not to mention the brave service members directly impacted.

Trump’s governance by tweet too often sends administration officials scrambling to understand, defend and implement his directives — often at their own peril.

This chaotic approach is not only unprofessional, it’s unsustainable, as evidenced by the constant state of upheaval seen in the Trump administration.

Now let’s talk about the potential policy. Sadly, we have a long history of restricting military service and excluding different groups of people. Women, minorities, and certainly LGBT Americans have endured periods of exclusion.

Time and again, though, history has proven exclusion and the rationales that accompany it to be shortsighted. The exclusion of transgender Americans from the armed forces will be no different.

Military service is honorable and voluntary. Folks from every walk of life give up their livelihoods — and many their lives — to serve us. When we exclude people based on false assumptions and bigoted fears, we lose.

Not only is exclusion in and of itself wrong, it is foolish to turn away capable volunteers.

Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said it well in his statement on Trump’s tweets, “We should all be guided by the principle that any American who wants to serve our country and is able to meet the standards should have the opportunity to do so — and should be treated as the patriots they are.”

Whether the rationale for Trump’s policy is ensuring unit cohesion, lessening disruptions or lowering costs associated with gender reassignment surgeries, these excuses for exclusion are quickly dismissed by studies and personal accounts from military members themselves.

Kristin Beck, a decorated transgender Navy Seal, made critical points about several of these false rationales in an interview with Business Insider.

“A very professional unit with great leadership wouldn’t have a problem,” she said in response to Trump’s tweets.

Beck also criticized the government’s treatment of the people it depends upon.

“They care more about the airplane or the tank than they care about people,” Beck said. “They don’t care about people. They don’t care about human beings.” A veteran with 20 years of experience seems more qualified to comment on the matter than our current president.

People, all people, are what make our country and our military great — not the weapons and equipment that prop up the military industrial complex.

Until we fully support the people serving our government, we will not meet our full potential. From beginning to end, public service should be open to all, respected with decent pay and benefits without exception, and protected from spontaneous political decisions.

Trump’s policy decree via tweet is harmful and ill-informed and, most importantly, will not make America great, as he so often exhorts.

Exclusion is a sign of fear, not strength. Divisiveness is the tool of those without compassion, without courage and without genuine ideas.

We should push back in the name of decency but also in the name of effectiveness.

Policies governing public service, military and otherwise, should not be based on politically expedient impulses. Effective administration of our government, and particularly our national defense, demands more.

This story was originally published August 3, 2017 at 3:27 PM with the headline "Is President Donald Trump right to call for banning transgender individuals from serving in the military?."