Last week, President Trump dropped a bombshell Tweet announcing that transgender people would no longer be allowed in the military.
The obviously controversial announcement comes in the midst of several years of debate surrounding the topic of transgender people in the military.
Earlier this year, Bradley Manning, aka Chelsea Manning, was released from prison. Manning was sentenced in 2013 for sharing classified documents with WikiLeaks, and after receiving his sentence of 35 years, he announced through his lawyer that he wanted to live his life as a woman.
What happened to Manning following this shocking turn of events is a poignant vignette of the obstacles a transgender person in the military would face. He attempted suicide several times while incarcerated, and he also petitioned the court to provide various “treatments” that would allow him to try to be more feminine–from hormone treatments to full-blown “gender reassignment” surgery.
Then, before Obama left office, he pardoned Manning. At this point, Manning had become a hero of the transgender movement, (almost as if that’s what he had been put in prison for in the first place, rather than violating the Espionage Act) and a national discussion about transgenders serving in the military was already well under way.
While liberals might still be in denial, it is hard to deny the fact that the principal reason for Trump’s election was a response from the American people to eight years of President Obama’s social justice warrior policies taking precedence over issues such as military might and the economy. And one of the ways that the Obama administration’s far-left values affected our country most dramatically was through his military policies.
Many on the right have criticized Obama for using the US military, the most powerful military force in the history of human civilization, as a sort of freak experiment for his socially radical leftist ideals. While those on the left, quite happily enjoying the cushy freedom that can only be maintained by such a powerful military, hailed the changes the Obama administration made to military policy, clearly those on the right, whose interest is in the protection of the US homeland and the security of our troops, felt differently.
While the Trump campaign’s most prominent messaging was focused on more stringent immigration policy from Latin America and the Middle East and creating jobs, one promise Trump made on the campaign trail that might have sailed over the heads of those on the left was the promise to bring back strength and honor to the US military.
The reason was, despite all valid criticism of the now-president, he was able to tap into the hearts and minds of those who had been alienated and brow-beaten for the last eight years with leftist lectures on equality and confusing gender pronouns. His base supports the military, and many of them are active duty or veterans, and strengthening our military after eight years of Obama was vital to these voters.
This move from Trump marks a determination to carry out this promise, which is, in essence, to bring masculinity and patriotism back to the military. Because that is what Obama was clearly trying to destroy, and I would like to illustrate to you how he did this.
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
One of the most famous cases of the Obama administration feminizing and liberalizing the military was his famous repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. This barred homosexual individuals serving in the military from being open about their sexual preferences. While many Democrats saw this policy as discriminatory, it was actually implemented by one of their own, Bill Clinton, in 1994.
The original purpose of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was actually meant to protect homosexuals serving in the military, and was a relaxation of policy that had mostly barred homosexuals from military service prior.
The timeline of policy regarding homosexuals in the military has a close correlation with cultural movements surrounding homosexual rights in our country. Before WWII, homosexuals in the military were court martialed and imprisoned. In the WWII era, they were typically admitted to mental institutions and subsequently discharged, as the medical community still considered homosexuality a psychiatric condition in those days.
As you can imagine, in the 70’s and 80’s as the homosexual revolution gained momentum in the United States, many gay activists turned their sights on the military, and, as so often happens with our government, politicians slowly gave in to the pressure. Hence, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” protected homosexuals from being discriminated against.
Of course, as is so common with the socially leftist agenda, that wasn’t enough for them, as they felt homosexuals serving in the military had a right to being open about their sexuality. So, in 2011, Obama reversed the policy, to the cheers of his far-left, LGBT supporters.
As you will know by now, it didn’t stop there. In 2015, Obama Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel stated that he was open to reconsidering the longstanding Pentagon ban against transgender individuals serving in the military. This came on the heels of Bradley Manning’s shocking announcement following his sentencing, and may very well have spurred the discussion.
Then, in July of 2015, it became official. Hagel’s successor, Ashton B. Carter, announced that the Pentagon would move to allow transgender people to serve openly in the military, stating that those who were already serving here being hurt by an “outdated” policy.
This shift from staunchly opposing anything but straight, masculine men in the military has of course, also come with increased integration of women in the military, notably with the recent introduction of women in combat.
Over the years, in conjunction with leftist feminism permeating the mainstream culture, women’s rights activists have continued to badger the military for basing policy on the reality of the physical differences between men and women. While the majority of feminists probably wouldn’t even consider serving in the military themselves, they certainly seem determined to make sure that as many women as possible can enter the armed forces.
Are Women Favored in the Military?
One of the most distinct ways that this has manifested itself in actual military policy is by lowering physical requirements by both men and women. An early YouTuber named Christy0Misty gained a following refuting mainstream leftist feminism and later deleted her account due to violent threats she received.One of the topics she addressed was based on her own experience in the armed services, in the Civil Air Patrol.
In her video, “Confessions of a GI Jane”, she shared how, as she gained rank during her time in the CAP, she began to discover a trend of favoritism towards women that was disenfranchising the men. One of the ways in which they were doing this was by lowering the physical requirements for women to regulations that nearly anyone could pass, while the men’s requirements remained vigorous and competitive. And when she spoke up, she was brushed off. Her confessional is worth a watch:
Robert Maginnis, a retired Army officer, agrees that standards are being lowered for the sake of pleasing a social agenda. “The pressure is on the services from the White House’s politically correct crowd vis-a-vis Obama’s Pentagon apointees,” he says, “who will force the services to accept degraded standards.”
“The pressure is on the services from the White House’s politically correct crowd vis-a-vis Obama’s Pentagon appointees, who will force the services to accept degraded standards,” said Robert Maginnis, a retired Army officer and author of the book “Deadly Consequences: How Cowards Are Pushing Women Into Combat.”
Of course, the fact that PT standards need to be lowered to accommodate female troops only stands to underscore the reality that women are irrefutably weaker physically than men. This became apparent as ambition female soldiers tried to blaze trains into the infantry and special forces after the ban on women serving in combat was lifted.
General Martin E. Dempsey, the nation’s top military official at the time the ban was lifted on women in combat, confirmed at the time that the administration would lower the standards to accommodate the incoming women. “If we do decide that a particular standard is so high that a woman couldn’t make it,” he said, “the burden is now on the service to come back and explain to the secretary, why is it that high? Does it really have to be that high?”
Lowering the standards for women would of course be the virtual only way women could advance in the infantry, ultimately, as evidenced by the first team of women who attempted to complete the rigorous testing for the Marine’s Infantry Officer Course. The IOC is a requirement for anyone who wants to be an infantry officer, and of the 29 women who attempted the course, none completed it, and only four made it through the first day.
While there are certainly many vital roles women could play in the military, serving in combat remains impractical. And yet, feminists have always continued to insist that women play a more and more prominent role in the military. This has nothing to do with national security–the ultimate purpose of the military–but with a leftist social agenda of “gender equality”. And sadly, the fact that women are clearly not physically equal to men plays no part in their logic.
It seems that men these days hardly object, too. A recent poll showed that men would actually support women being drafted, a proposal that was dropped from Congress last year. According to the poll, a striking 61% of men were in favor of implementing the draft for women. Most ironically, of course, is the fact that of female respondents to the same poll, more women than not were actually against women being drafted.
This is the sad reality of our time, I believe. While men are abandoning chivalry and sitting back to let the feminists wreak havoc on American culture, at the end of the day, women would still rather have men do their fighting for them. Whether this means that it is only a small majority of women representing all women, or that, at the end of the day, today’s feminists don’t practice what they preach, the reality is that this is one huge example of our our military is being demasculinized.
So, when it comes to social agendas, what typically comes hand-in-hand with feminism and a pro-LGBT agenda? That’s right: Islam. In perhaps the most striking and self-detrimental pressure applied to the military yet, American liberals have actually decried the lack of Muslims in the military and throw media fits whenever a Muslim isn’t allowed to wear their beard or hijab in uniform.
If you search for “Muslims in the US Military” on Google, you will be met with a slew of articles from mainstream, liberal publications like the New York Times, lamenting how few Muslims there are in the military and the difficulties those who are enlisted face, such as non-halal food, dress codes that are unfriendly to beards, and a notable lack of prayer rooms or imams serving as military chaplains.
Articles like these also never fail to point out how, between 15 years of military intervention in Muslim-majority countries and the fallout from the 9/11 attacks, Muslim soldiers face a huge stigma and, sometimes, harassment. Of course, this is pinned on those doing the harassing, and not those who identify with a religion whose adherents commonly pledge “death to America” and target US military bases and embassies abroad.
Liberals unrelentingly blame the US for Muslim terrorism, so of course the fact that Army psychiatrist Nidal Hassan went on a shooting spree in Ft. Hood, Texas in November of 2009 was no different. While to most sensible observers, the shooting in Ft. Hood would be a very good example of why we must be wary of allowing Muslims to serve in our armed forces, to liberals, it was a result of the pressure of Hassan having to listen to the psychological trials of troubled veterans all day as an Army psychiatrist. Nevermind that he asked to join the Islamic State from death row or screamed “Allahu akbar” before commencing his shooting spree.
What is possibly more insane than twisting the implications of the Ft. Hood shooting is that liberals of course think the obvious solution is to allow more Muslims to serve in the military, and to make them feel welcome. In the UK, there is even a campaign to recruit more Muslims into the armed forces, since the government was concerned that despite the high Muslim population in the UK, very few Muslims enlisted. One might think that because so few Muslims enlisted, perhaps they did not have the best interest of their host country in mind, but not liberals. In the US, every other minority group is adequately represented, and we have a strong history of patriotic immigrants joining up to serve their new home.
This is not to disparage those Muslims who do want to serve their country and condemn the violence that is committed across the world in the name of Allah. Or the women or transgender people who simply want to defend their homeland. At the end of the day, if these individuals are up to the challenge, an argument can be made to let them take it.
But that’s just it: serving in the military is a challenge. We must not let liberals, who are largely anti-military to begin with, dictate policy that should be decided by seasoned military veterans who know what it takes to protect and defend our homeland and our interests abroad. We cannot expect those who have already proven themselves up to the challenge of serving in the armed forces to have the standards lowered to protect someone else’s sense of political correctness.
The military is not a social experiment, it is an organized killing force. There is no room for feelings when it comes to security. And finally, we have a commander-in-chief who understands this.
