There's a more sensible middle-ground here, in that the military should have no problem enlisting people with gender identity beliefs - just as it's fine for military personnel to hold varying religious beliefs - but that no-one else should be obliged to accept these beliefs as true, and that the military should not have to fund any cosmetic procedures to make an individual appear to be of the opposite sex. While also not discriminating against anyone for having these beliefs.
This is a sensible middle-ground approach for the rest of society too. Just treat it like a minority religious belief, then the issue is solved fairly without stepping on anyone's rights.
If both Republicans and Democrats agreed to this approach and put this issue to bed, they could get on with wrangling over much more important problems of governance.
> should not have to fund any cosmetic procedures to make an individual appear to be of the opposite sex
Why is this a talking point? Gender affirming surgeries are extremely rare. Very few trans people go through with them. And even when they do, recovery times are in the order of days or weeks which has little to no impact on the efficacy of the fighting force.
The main things trans people want are:
1. That people treat them with basic human dignity and respect.
2. Access to gender affirming medications. It ultimately doesn't really matter who pays for them because they cost nothing. They are quite literally some of the cheapest medications on the market. Estradiol without insurance costs like 10-20USD for a 3 month supply. Testosterone about the same or less. Androgen blockers cost like 1-5USD for a 3 month supply. You could not find cheaper medications and most pharmacies won't even run insurance for them because they are so cheap. The reason the military "needs" to pay for them is because they need to run the medication through their logistics network so that it is accessible where it is needed.
The cost is irrelevant. What matters is that the medication can get delivered to ships and bases in a timely manner. And that is why the military pays for it.
Why should cosmetic interventions, whether pharmaceutical or surgical, to give an individual the appearance of secondary sex characteristics of the opposite sex, be something the military should have any interest in doing? It doesn't help its mission does it.
They aren't cosmetic. Hormone replacement therapy has more mental impact than anything else.
And the reason they should have interest in doing it is because the overwhelming majority of trans people in the military are people who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria while in the military. The military treats that gender dysphoria so that they can continue to be effective members of the fighting force.
These are people who are already in the military and want to continue to be in the military and do their jobs effectively. A few pills a day or an injection every few days or weeks is generally effective at treating gender dysphoria with accommodations such as social transition further treating it while doing nothing to diminish the efficacy of the fighting force.
Not treating or accommodating them means they either leave the military (which is a problem because the military has a critical shortage of senior personnel due to horrific retention issues) or they perform their duties in a diminished capacity. There's no reason to harm the fighting force's efficacy and/or retention over a treatment that has essentially zero cost and no impact on operational readiness (compared to all the other long term treatments they allow which do impact operational readiness).
We allow people to self-identify their religious beliefs. The government doesn't declare you to be a Catholic or a Buddhist and force your driver's license to say such.
Unless you're proposing making the military- and the rest of society- radically gender neutral, than as soon as a person interacts with a driver's license, passport, social media account, or bathroom, they will have to adopt a gender identity . Why should a third party's "gender beliefs" about a person be elevated above their own?
(I also can't see a justification for denying hormone replacement therapy treatment- it's cheap and ridiculously beneficial for mental health. But, for the same reasons, I advocate its availability over-the-counter.)
The architectural solution to gender neutral bathrooms is floor to ceiling panels and doors that actually close. It's quite simple and extremely common in newer buildings in Europe.
Driver's license and passport record sex, and bathrooms and other spaces that are separated for women and men are done so on the basis of sex.
Being an objective measurement of material biological state, sex isn't the same type of thing as a gender identity belief, which is indeed self-declared like a religion is.
This is a sensible middle-ground approach for the rest of society too. Just treat it like a minority religious belief, then the issue is solved fairly without stepping on anyone's rights.
If both Republicans and Democrats agreed to this approach and put this issue to bed, they could get on with wrangling over much more important problems of governance.