Last Thursday I was privileged to attend an event that had been scheduled as part of an ongoing advocacy effort on behalf of open trans military service. The symposium, entitled "Inclusive Military Policy: Transgender Service, Like Repealing DADT, Strengthens the Force," was planned when it seemed that the original deadline, already six months past, would be kicked further downfield, potentially into a new administration. The lineup was chosen very strategically to make the case that the time for dallying had long passed, and the noises coming from the Congressional Armed Services committees needed to be ignored.
The lineup included Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, and Democratic Whip, Steny Hoyer, Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), and Under Secretary of Defense Peter Levine. Hosting the event was the Palm Center's Aaron Belkin, with participation of:
•Major General Gale Pollock, USA (Ret.) and Rear Admiral Alan Steinman, USCG (Ret.) representing the community of retired General and Flag Officers;
•Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Victor Valenzuela, Army Captain Sage Fox, and Army Staff Sergeant A. Nazzal, representing 12,800 - 15,500 transgender troops serving currently;
• Major Kimberly Moore, USMC (Ret.) representing 134,000 transgender veterans;
•British Army Captain Hannah Winterbourne, representing 19 militaries that allow transgender service; and
•Dr. Nathaniel Frank, the gay scholar who has performed and encouraged much of the LGBT research leading to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and the removal of the administrative ban on trans service.
This was a powerful cast of characters, invited to lay down a marker to the Pentagon that further delay was unacceptable.
The effort turned out to be unnecessary; the symposium was a time of celebration.
Celebrating with Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, of whom Harvard Law Professor Janet Halley said, "Probably no single person deserves more credit for the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell," were other leaders of the LGBT community and the effort to end the trans ban. These included Matt Thorn, representing Outserve-SLDN, David Stacy of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Fiona Dawson, producer of the award-winning documentary, TransMilitary, Harper Jean Tobin of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders (who served with Admiral Steinman and Aaron Belkin on the Transgender Military Service Commission which studied the ban back in 2014 along with Professors George Brown and Eli Coleman), and members of SPARTA, the mostly-trans LGBT organization which was at the forefront of this repeal effort and recently released its 147 page guide to implementation, represented this day by president Sue Fulton.
I was especially impressed with the words of Rear Admiral Alan Steinman, who, as a physician and former member of the US Public Health Service, explained the ban to the audience and distinguished it from Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Dr. Steinman explained how the ban on trans service was administrative, based on outmoded psychiatric beliefs, and the removal of the ban required a process different from convincing Congress to repeal the DADT law. He explained how their efforts were absolutely contingent upon the revision of the DSM in 2011, when being trans was de-psychopathologized with removal of the diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder. Its replacement, Gender Dysphoria, built on the definition of being trans as gender incongruence, a state with no moral or religious values applied to it.
I'm very proud to have been part of the team which re-wrote the Gender Dysphoria text, and I'm amazed that even though we knew, a decade ago, that repeal of the ban would require the revision of the DSM, that we were able to accomplish both in less than ten years. Not only was this repeal absolutely contingent on revision of the DSM, as the ban was directly derived from the earlier psychiatric consensus, but, more importantly, I believe that removal of being trans as a type of mental illness empowered innumerable trans persons to take control of their lives with confidence and pride. The efforts of trans advocates like Brynn Tannehill, lead author of the SPARTA report, Allyson Robinson, former Executive Director of SLDN, and Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), who has shared his legal expertise throughout this process, were amplified by the knowledge that there was nothing but fear preventing repeal. This is the incrementalism of the civil rights movement at work.
Just as repeal of DADT had been resisted by the fake issue of a threat to unit cohesion, so, too, were efforts to thwart the repeal of the trans ban. Director Belkin has said,
It's increasingly obvious that ostensible concerns are, in fact, a delay tactic masquerading as complexity. ... [A]ll genuine questions--as opposed to stalling tactics--about implementing inclusive policy have now been addressed by a wide variety of expert sources.
Those fears were voiced just recently by none other than Senator John McCain, who learned nothing from his previously doomed efforts, or his being insulted by Donald Trump.
I look back at decades of research and advocacy, and wonder why it took so long. How could physicians grounded in scientific truths have allowed themselves to demonize an entire community based on religious beliefs rooted in homophobia and misogyny? Why would a military that has had to loosen its standards to fill the ranks prefer to reject service members it knows have been serving honorably for decades, though in secret?
And, yet, I come back to the fact that given the complexity and diversity of this country, made so obvious in the rise of fascism and hatred in this election year, and the deadly persistence of institutionalized racism. It's remarkable that the LGBT community has been able to achieve so much in, basically, the past decade. Americans took real notice of the trans community only back in 2007 with the issue of trans inclusion in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and here we are today, with a community no longer considered mentally ill, with federal protections under the 1964 Civil Rights Act Titles VII and IX endorsed forcefully by the President, marriage equality for the entire LGBT community, and open military service for all as well.
That half-full glass continues being filled up. Now we just have to get all decent people out to vote in November to allow the progress to continue.