If you’re like me you’ve probably had it with being afraid of the sheer rise in power that the transgender movement has amassed in little over two years. It has many people scared, truly scared. Scared of saying (I’m going to say it): Biological men can never be real women; men cannot have babies; referring to oneself as “they” is beyond grammatically infelicitous, it renders one a nonsensical and a conceptual non-entity; the transgender affirmation of adolescents, which means agreeing to visiting a host of atrocities on a child’s body and plying it with irreversible drugs, is child abuse; trans women (biological men) have no business participating in (real) women’s sports. There I’ve said it all—at least as much as I care to for now. Why are people scared of offending trans people?
Misgendering another person, I am told, is the worst offense you can commit against another human being—as bad as rape and murder. No kidding. How did a small minority of people get to command the language, protocols, norms and framing methods of an entire culture in so short a space of time? Who handed all that power to them, and why?
To read more visit Front Page Mag.
COL William “Billy” Mitchell resigned from the US Army in 1926. His rank was not commensurate with his courage and impact on the history of the US military and the United States, especially on World War 2. Enlisting as a private in 1899 in the Spanish-American War, he soon earned a commission. After serving in Cuba and the Philippines, he was stationed in Alaska where he began his lifelong love affair with aviation. A signal officer, he took private flying lessons in 1916 and soon became a leader among early Army aviators. In 1918, he commanded all American aviation assets at St Mihiel and led his 1,400+ airplane crews to victory in the air and additionally demonstrated how air power can decimate ground forces. After the war, he continued to clamor for rapid expansion of the size and capability of the air service, convinced that air power would be key to victory in the next world war. In the early 1920s, he sank a captured German battleship with American bombers during naval exercises. Instead of being hailed as a revolutionary and promoted, he was vilified as a heretic by short sighted Army and Navy commanders. He left service in 1926 but continued his public crusade to promote American military air power. Although he died in 1936, his predictions came to pass, and US military air power was undoubtedly decisive in winning World War 2. Tragically, his courage was not recognized until after his death.
Today’s military is facing a very different crisis. Throughout history it has been shown that great military leaders in any venue can carry the day. Mitchell was unafraid to risk his reputation and career for the good of the military and the nation. Today’s DoD has no such hero amongst the ranks of its senior leaders on active duty. Some lower ranking generals bravely spoke out during the debacles in OEF and Afghanistan and were fired. There were no senior generals and admirals willing to make a similar stand on the status and prosecution of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The result was predictable and unfortunate.
Post-war DoD is failing due to self-inflicted mandates and social misadventures that are destroying recruiting and morale. As a profession, it should be expected to fix itself from within, but this would assume that military leaders have the backbone to take such action. Instead, the overturning of the ill-advised vaccine mandate only happened because politicians forced SECDEF Austin to end it. One general’s protest won’t right the ship. However, if enough generals and admirals collectively protested the politically engineered destruction of the best military the world has ever known, change would be forced. Unfortunately, brave creatures would have to be willing to sacrifice their careers for the greater good.
There are 620 active-duty flag officers authorized in the DoD. Since 2021 the number of active-duty flag officers willing to show such courage is 0. Billy Mitchell must be rolling over in his grave. Thank God it is not 1939. The second half of the 20th century would have turned out more darkly given the character of modern US generals.
John Hughes, MD
Emergency Physician
Veteran of Iraq, Afghanistan
During the so-called "Phoney War" from the fall of 1939 to the spring of 1940, the former Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Lord Gort – reassigned to command the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France against the German attack that everyone knew was to come – inexplicably remained attentive to nonessential concerns. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s biographer wrote that during the eight months prior to the fateful date of 10 May 1940, when Hitler launched his attack on France, Gort “never once conducted an administrative, signals, Intelligence or even movement exercise.” He was entirely unprepared and ill-suited for the command he now held. One of Montgomery’s trusted subordinates, serving at Gort’s general headquarters at Arras, France, “. . . found the most amateur arrangements conceivable.” In one striking case of misdirected energy, Gort’s deputy “concentrated entirely on the wines and food for the mess of the Quartermaster-General at Noyel-les Vion, a village some miles west of Arras. How, in such circumstances, the BEF was supposed to swell itself into an eventual formation of two armies, with nearly half a million men, was incredible,” wrote Nigel Hamilton.
But Gort’s concern over the selection of wines for the officers’ mess shortly before the German onslaught against France in 1940 is not unlike the misguided activities of the Pentagon’s senior leaders amid gathering war clouds eight decades later. Since January 2021, the defense department’s obsession with Critical Race [racist] Theory (CRT) – and its “close cousin,” as Dr. Carol Swain describes – Diversity-Equity-Inclusion (DEI), adds no more to the combat readiness of the U.S. armed forces than did Gort’s choice wines. Worse, the Pentagon’s costly, counterproductive actions – including the virtue-signaling hunt for “extremists” within the ranks, renaming military posts, and promoting social-political causes from abortion-on-demand to pronoun preferences to drag-queen-military-library events to transgender reassignment procedures to unproven vaccine mandates – actually are lowering those intangible but indispensable elements of combat readiness known as morale and trust. (In terms of extremism, does not the discharging of trained personnel unwilling to subject themselves to an unproven vaccine, especially during a manpower shortfall, seem an example?) At least in the BEF’s case, the wine selections offered some momentary morale boost for British officers, albeit most of whom sadly lacked the professionalism required to engage the German Wehrmacht with any chance of success in 1940.
At least within socially permitted categories dependent on time and place, successful militaries have been based mainly upon merit. But today’s Pentagon seeks a paradigm change in the name of its god, Diversity, which means everything to its leadership. Years ago, conservative scholar and author, Professor Thomas Sowell, observed: “The mystical benefits of diversity are nonexistent, however politically correct it is to proclaim such benefits.” Two months ago, during oral arguments in an affirmative action case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas rightly observed that diversity “seems to mean everything for everyone...”
To read more visit Real Clear Defense.
8.4% of female servicemembers reported being sexually assaulted in 2021. With over 224,000 females on active duty that amounts to over 18,000 women reporting assault. These 18,000 women, in addition to the rest of DoD, have been ordered to accept the new DoD transgender policy. Servicemembers have no say in whether or not transgender servicemembers (even before transition begins) can shower with them, live in their dorm rooms, or join in other areas of their garrison and deployed lives. Training has been clear that servicemembers who object to the integration will be investigated for violations of equal opportunity policy. Further, training has made it clear that transgenders can withhold the fact they are transitioning from anyone but commanders and medical personnel. As a result, female servicemembers are not allowed to ask if a new roommate or showermate with male genitalia is transgender.
RLE (Real Life Experience) as defined by DoDI (1300.28 (30 April 2021) “In-Service Transition for Transgender Service Members”:
“The phase in the gender transition process during which the individual begins living socially in the gender role consistent with their self-identified gender. RLE may or may not be preceded by the commencement of cross-sex hormone therapy, depending on the medical treatment associated with the individual Service member, cadet, or midshipman’s gender transition. The RLE phase is also a necessary precursor to certain medical procedures, including gender transition surgery. RLE generally encompasses dressing in the new gender, as well as using self-identified gender berthing, bathroom, and shower facilities.”
Sexual assault victims commonly suffer for a sense of loss of control of their body. Many continue to experience PTSD of the events. As a physician, I fail to see in any form how ordering 18,000 female service member rape victims to accept showering and living with a servicemember with male genitalia without notification or any ability to reasonably request accommodations for their sexual assault healing process is acceptable.
Women comprise over 16% of the military’s force. Estimates vary widely on the transgender component, ranging from 0.3% to 1% with the DoD estimate from 2019 being the higher number. With the military taking the civilian sector’s lead in suppressing news and statistics concerning transgender sexual assault against cis women, this is a disturbing development. This article does not allege that all transgender servicemembers are predators. On the contrary, to provide the benefit of the doubt, the vast majority are likely non-violent and patriotic like any other group of Americans. However, numerous reports of assaults have managed to avoid the intense suppression by school boards and mass media. Likely the incidence of assaults is far higher.
Even if there is no risk of sexual assault against cis women, mandating victims of sexual assault to shower and live in close quarters and see male genitalia against their will is evil. Clearly, this plan was not adequately thought through. Worse, if DoD leaders knew about this major problem and proceeded anyway to appease political masters, then a public and national debate must immediately be done to safeguard the rights and medical needs of cis women. As it stands the translation of the policy is that cis-gender females don’t matter in the military anymore. As a brother to two former female servicemembers and spouse of a retired USAF officer, the details of the policy border on treachery.
Transgender patients are frequently on numerous psychiatric medications to control their issues beyond gender dysphoria. Adding multiple high dose sexual hormone treatments is likely to make emotional issues worse, especially during the transition process. This adds to the problematic plan to have them living with male genitalia with female cis-gender servicemembers, particularly ones who have been victims of rape and assault.
As an ER physician for over 20 years, I have treated many women who were sexual assault victims. Even years after the event, many are still uncomfortable around male doctors. Imagine now subjecting them to living conditions against their will.
In Iraq, our brigade had a battalion of all male soldiers from a NATO country. Their soldiers didn’t respect women as the US military does (or at least did at one time) and they often just walked into the female shower areas. In addition to them attempting to get gratuitous views of our soldiers, several near assaults were averted by our male soldiers who quickly stood by to guard our female soldiers with 2x4s. If generals won’t protect our soldiers, I am quite confident the lower ranks will take care of their own and much friction will result. Generals need to realize that if they intend to integrate transgender servicemembers to the military that it doesn’t have to be a zero sum game where cis-gender women lose their rights and self-respect.
John Hughes, MD
Emergency Physician
West Point Class of 1996
Veteran Iraq/Afghanistan
Member of www.starrs.us
2 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/biden-admin-scraps-trump-s-restrictions-transgender-troops-n1262646
