As reported by Bob Unruh for WND, March 13, 2014, Elders heads a “study team” at San Francisco State University’s Palm Center, a sex issues-oriented think tank, which just issued a report declaring there “is no compelling medical reason” for the U.S. military to bar transgenders, and that Obama could bypass Congress and order the change himself.
More than that, the study also insists that “military interests” would be “advanced” if the military, i.e., taxpayers, would “support” transgenders by paying the costs of “cross-sex hormone treatment,” as well as “medically necessary gender-confirming” body-modification surgery and “continuity of care.”
Among the options that should be available surgically, the study notes, include scrotoplasty, phalloplasty or metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, vaginoplasty and more, estimating that taxpayers might be compelled to pay for hundreds of the $30,000 procedures annually. Moreover, nearly 30 percent of such surgical patients end up with complications that later require additional treatment, the study said.
At present, transgenders are discharged from the military. But the Palm Center report says this is most unfair and cites the fact that the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition no longer classifies transgenderism as a disorder.
WND Managing Editor David Kupelian has the back-story, “Amputating healthy organs the new normal”, to the APA’s official about-face on transgenderism:
Transgender people will now be diagnosed with “gender dysphoria,” which means emotional stress related to gender identity. “Gender identity disorder” had been listed as a mental disorder since the third edition of the DSM more than 20 years ago.
In an interview with The Advocate, APA member Jack Drescher explained the new revision, saying, “All psychiatric diagnoses occur within a cultural context. We know there is a whole community of people out there who are not seeking medical attention and live between the two binary categories. We wanted to send the message that the therapist’s job isn’t to pathologize.”
“If that sounds confusing,” wrote Kupelian, “it gets worse: A report in the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry uses academic lingo and tortured multicultural logic to rationalize why there’s nothing at all wrong with people who want to cut off healthy breasts and genitalia in pursuit of ‘gender transition’.” (In the following quote from the journal, gibberish jargon-laden words are colored pink):
Inherent in the current DSM definition is a Western model of the relationship between sex and gender which epitomizes the tension existing between essentialist and constructivist accounts of gender development. This model determines that gender-aberrant behavior and gender variation are, by definition, pathological, and reinforces a binary gender model. Studies of non-Western cultures reveal variations in models of gender and in the understanding of gender deviance. Cultures vary in their definition of gender roles and show varying degrees of tolerance for atypical gender behaviors and gender change. An understanding of cultural context is important in the clinical assessment of atypical gender development and challenges current models of sex and gender.
Kupelian explains: “Translation: If you think there’s something wrong with people who want to amputate parts of their body, you’re intolerant, biased in favor of Western culture and hung up on the outdated notion that there are just two genders. If you were more multiculturally enlightened, you would realize it is just your own prejudice and narrow frame of reference that is the real problem here.”
Elder’s report noted that besides incredibly high numbers of attempted suicides, studies also have found “transgender service members report poor mental health,” as well as “elevated rates of suicide, risk for HIV infection, exposure to trauma, ” and other major health challenges. “Despite such data,” the report said, “arguments based on mental health are not convincing rationales for prohibiting transgender military service …” In fact, said the report, “Empirical data suggest that many non-transgender service members continue to serve despite psychological conditions that may not be as amendable to treatment as gender dysphoria.”
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, which also opposed allowing open homosexuality among the military ranks, has argued the military’s goal is to defend the country, not serve as a giant social experiment: “This is putting an extra burden on men and women in the military that they certainly don’t need and they don’t deserve.”
The Palm Center think tank is funded in part by a $1.3 million grant from Jennifer Pritzker, a billionaire supporter of Obama. Pritzker is also former Army lieutenant colonel who came out as transgender.
Although Department of Defense spokesman Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen says there “are no plans” to change existing policy and regulations barring transgender individuals from serving in the military, I won’t count on it.
~Eowyn