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They are obviously going to have to wear their ID on their sleeve for anyone to even attempt a showing of proper respect.
I guess they'll just be Colonel X or Sergeant Y or Lieutenant Z. But like you said, they would have to be wearing their ID's at all times since there's no generic gender-neutral term of respect in English.
The intent of the far left has always been to destroy the finest military on the planet. Sadly it looks like the sexual deviants are achieving their goal.
It's not a fine military if we're all so scared that they can't handle gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people in the military. They (and many in this thread) must be incredibly weak individuals. G-d forbid they have to be around people who want to serve so badly that they risk being flamed by those more ignorant simply for existing.
Nope, that's not a military that anyone can be proud of.
There are a number - over a hundred - of medical conditions we call "Intersex". That is, neither wholly male, nor wholly female.
This is not a philosophical issue, or a religious issue, it's a biological issue, capable of being examined and proven by objective tests.
Most - 98.3% in fact - people are normally male, or normally female. No doubts, no ambiguities. And of the 1.7% who are Intersexed, most are asymptomatic, and never know - unless they go to a fertility clinic, or have a gene test taken for health reasons. You could be one of them.
But for 1 in 1000 - yes, that common - it's not asymptomatic at all. Many of the more conditions have already been mentioned, but they're not the most spectacular ones.
AIS - androgen insensitivity syndrome. This feminises a masculine body. There are degrees - partial AIS 1 leads to a male body with hypogonadism, undeveloped genitalia, and probably some other feminisation too. Complete AIS (CAIS) results in a female body. Miss Teen America 1991 had CAIS. Women with CAIS universally have a female gender identity - more on that later.
CAH - congenital adrenal hyperplasia. This masculinises a feminine body. Again, there are degrees. Only 1 in 10 have a male gender identity, despite somewhat masculinised genitalia.
Kleinfelter - usually 47xxy rather than 46xy (male) or 46xx (female), though 48xxyy etc and combinations are also possible. These people usually look male, with male gender identities. But some don't, and some have even given birth.
Turner syndrome - 45x - has been explained before.
Swyer sundrome - 46xy, but with a complete female reproductive system, except for the gonads. They can give birth, but only as surrogate mothers.
There are 46xy women who have given birth in the normal way. There are 46xx men who have fathered children. There are mosaics, people with both 46xx and 46xy chromosomes in different parts of their bodies. Or 45x/46xy, or 47xxy/46xx, or 47xxy/46xy, and so on.
It gets worse though. It has been common medical practice to surgically alter newborn babies with unusual genitalia so they look "normal". This means that some normal baby boys whose male organ was deemed too small were castrated, and surgically altered to look female. Many only were told later in life - usually after they'd seen a psychiatrist because they thought they were transsexual. They looked female, but their gender identity was always male.
But that's not all. There are several rare conditions, such as 5ARD and 17BHDD that cause a natural sex change. Those born with 5ARD or 17BHDD look like little girls, regardless of their chromosomes. But half masculinise at puberty, the genitals change shape, and some can even father children. For 2/3 of them, this is a wonderful relief, gender identity is usually male. But for the rest, it's a descent into nightmare, and a medical emergency.
OK, that's Intersex - but what about Transsexuality? Isn't that just a mental illness, curable with therapy or drugs or something?
No. Transsexuality is a form of Intersex, one where the brain, rather than other parts of the body, is affected. In fact, other parts of the body are often affected too, though the only area of the brain that matters is the lymbic nucleus, the parts that deal with emotions, instincts, body map, ovulation and so on.
This has been known since 1996, as the result of autopsies on the brains of transsexual people. We've known that male and female brains differ structurally for even longer, but the results from 1996 show that transsexuals have cross-gendered brains, just as some intersexed people have cross-gendered genitalia or chromosomes. We can now use Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to show this on people who aren't dead. Which is a distinct advantage to the people concerned.
See:
Zhou JN, Hofman MA, Gooren LJ, Swaab DF. A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. Nature (1995) 378:68–70. Page not found : Nature Publishing Group (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal.../378068a0.html - broken link)
There are a number - over a hundred - of medical conditions we call "Intersex". That is, neither wholly male, nor wholly female.
This is not a philosophical issue, or a religious issue, it's a biological issue, capable of being examined and proven by objective tests.
Most - 98.3% in fact - people are normally male, or normally female. No doubts, no ambiguities. And of the 1.7% who are Intersexed, most are asymptomatic, and never know - unless they go to a fertility clinic, or have a gene test taken for health reasons. You could be one of them.
But for 1 in 1000 - yes, that common - it's not asymptomatic at all. Many of the more conditions have already been mentioned, but they're not the most spectacular ones.
AIS - androgen insensitivity syndrome. This feminises a masculine body. There are degrees - partial AIS 1 leads to a male body with hypogonadism, undeveloped genitalia, and probably some other feminisation too. Complete AIS (CAIS) results in a female body. Miss Teen America 1991 had CAIS. Women with CAIS universally have a female gender identity - more on that later.
CAH - congenital adrenal hyperplasia. This masculinises a feminine body. Again, there are degrees. Only 1 in 10 have a male gender identity, despite somewhat masculinised genitalia.
Kleinfelter - usually 47xxy rather than 46xy (male) or 46xx (female), though 48xxyy etc and combinations are also possible. These people usually look male, with male gender identities. But some don't, and some have even given birth.
Turner syndrome - 45x - has been explained before.
Swyer sundrome - 46xy, but with a complete female reproductive system, except for the gonads. They can give birth, but only as surrogate mothers.
There are 46xy women who have given birth in the normal way. There are 46xx men who have fathered children. There are mosaics, people with both 46xx and 46xy chromosomes in different parts of their bodies. Or 45x/46xy, or 47xxy/46xx, or 47xxy/46xy, and so on.
It gets worse though. It has been common medical practice to surgically alter newborn babies with unusual genitalia so they look "normal". This means that some normal baby boys whose male organ was deemed too small were castrated, and surgically altered to look female. Many only were told later in life - usually after they'd seen a psychiatrist because they thought they were transsexual. They looked female, but their gender identity was always male.
But that's not all. There are several rare conditions, such as 5ARD and 17BHDD that cause a natural sex change. Those born with 5ARD or 17BHDD look like little girls, regardless of their chromosomes. But half masculinise at puberty, the genitals change shape, and some can even father children. For 2/3 of them, this is a wonderful relief, gender identity is usually male. But for the rest, it's a descent into nightmare, and a medical emergency.
OK, that's Intersex - but what about Transsexuality? Isn't that just a mental illness, curable with therapy or drugs or something?
No. Transsexuality is a form of Intersex, one where the brain, rather than other parts of the body, is affected. In fact, other parts of the body are often affected too, though the only area of the brain that matters is the lymbic nucleus, the parts that deal with emotions, instincts, body map, ovulation and so on.
This has been known since 1996, as the result of autopsies on the brains of transsexual people. We've known that male and female brains differ structurally for even longer, but the results from 1996 show that transsexuals have cross-gendered brains, just as some intersexed people have cross-gendered genitalia or chromosomes. We can now use Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to show this on people who aren't dead. Which is a distinct advantage to the people concerned.
See:
Zhou JN, Hofman MA, Gooren LJ, Swaab DF. A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. Nature (1995) 378:68–70. Page not found : Nature Publishing Group (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal.../378068a0.html - broken link)
It's not a fine military if we're all so scared that they can't handle gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people in the military. They (and many in this thread) must be incredibly weak individuals. G-d forbid they have to be around people who want to serve so badly that they risk being flamed by those more ignorant simply for existing.
Nope, that's not a military that anyone can be proud of.
Do your grand social experiments somewhere else. The military is not the place for it.
Do your grand social experiments somewhere else. The military is not the place for it.
Actually, the military becoming desegregated before "the rest of freedom loving Americans" decided to graciously bestow equality on minorities in their midst WAS a great example of the military taking the lead
By the way, you can thank THIS homo for WRITING the book that helped develop standards for the American military in the first place:
Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben (born Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben; September 17, 1730 – November 28, 1794), also referred to as the Baron von Steuben, was a Prussian-born military officer who served as inspector general and Major General of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
He is credited with being one of the fathers of the Continental Army in teaching them the essentials of military drills, tactics, and disciplines.
He wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual, the book that served as the standard United States drill manual until the War of 1812. He served as General George Washington's chief of staff in the final years of the war.
He joins Alexander the Great and Richard the Lion Heart as some of the great gay/bi military minds that have existed throughout history. ANY military personnel that is too immature to accept gays in their ranks should leave. And they shouldn't take any pension either, because gays pay taxes that pay their salaries.
Hardly any ts' would want to serve in the military anyway. It doesn't pay enough.
Actually, the incidence of any "trans" wanting to join the military probably IS quite low, since the incidence of trans is low in the population as a whole.
Not surprisingly, there also seems to be a lot of confusion among the posters here. High heels, uniform changes, etc.... completely irrelevant. TRANSVESTISIM is not TRANSEXUALISM. I think posters should be required to show some base level of understanding of the subject matter of any topic before gifting us with their oh-so-intelligent comments.
A question should be, does BEING trans (or, SHOULD being trans) be something that disqualifies someone from service, on its face? Flat out, nothing else wrong except being trans? If so, why? Let's hear some INTELLIGENT reasons why it might be a bad thing?
And, are we talking about people who are post-op, or merely meet the psychological profile of someone who is trans? I can think of at least a couple logical reasons why post-op transexuals living with assistance of hormone therapy might not be the best situation for a soldier in a theater of war, but if pre-op and otherwise well-adjusted, what's the big deal?
It's much ado about nothing, really.
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