During World War II, more than 1 million African Americans served in the armed forces, but the U.S. military was still heavily segregated.
The Air Force instituted the Tuskegee Airmen, an all Black flight squadron, and when the Marines finally accepted Blacks in its ranks, Black recruits were not allowed in Camp Lejeune unless accompanied by a White Marine and were housed at nearby Montfort Point, their service papers were stamped “Colored”, and the recruits were assigned to inactive duty in the Marine Corps Reserve. The army had only five African-American officers. The Black soldiers in the war were largely limited to noncombat units, and they had to sometimes give up their seats in trains to the Nazi prisoners of war.
It would take over 50 years and a presidential order before the U.S. Army reviewed their records in order to award any Medals of Honor to Black soldiers.
Black soldiers had to wait four years before they could begin combat training while Whites would begin training within months of being qualified.
In 1947, A. Philip Randolph and Grant Reynolds formed the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, later renamed the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation. Black threats to boycott the segregated armed forces could not be ignored, and civil rights demands had to be considered in developing laws relating to Selective Service and Universal Military Training.
In 1948,Harry Truman issued Executive Order 8802 establishing equality of treatment and opportunity in the military for people of all races, religions, or national origins.
“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.”
The order also established a committee to investigate and make recommendations to the civilian leadership of the military to implement the policy.
Until the end of WWII women could serve in the military, but only in non-combat roles. Having active duty only came about in the 1970s with reluctance to have them do any actual fighting.
In 1990, some 40,000 American military women were deployed during the Gulf War, Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, but not in combat. A 1994 policy prohibited women from assignment to ground combat units below the brigade level.
It was only in 2013 that the US ended the policy of “no women in units that are tasked with direct combat.”
Policies based on sexual orientation appeared as the United States prepared to enter World War II when the military added psychiatric screening to its induction process. Homosexuality was included as a disqualifying trait. In 1942, the military distinguished “homosexual” recruits from “normal” recruits for the first time. In 1944, a new policy decreed that homosexuals were to be committed to military hospitals, examined by psychiatrists, and discharged under Regulation 615-360, section 8.
This was further modified in 1947 when the “blue discharges” were discontinued and two new classifications were created: “general” and “undesirable”under which a serviceman or woman found to be Gay, but who had not committed any sexual acts while in service, would tend to receive an undesirable discharge.
This regulation is familiar to those who have watched Corporal Clinger on the television show M.A.S.H.
The 1957 Crittenden Report dismissed the charge that homosexuals constitute a security risk, but it still advocated for stringent anti-homosexual policies because “Homosexuality is wrong, it is evil, and it is to be branded as such.”
However, from the 1950s through the Vietnam War, when personnel shortages occurred, homosexuals were allowed to serve and possibly die, but otherwise they were too sinful to serve.
In 1982 the Department of Defense solidified its previous objections to an integrated military and women serving when it issued a policy stating that, “Homosexuality is incompatible with military service”, and the military needed “to maintain discipline, good order, and morale” and “to prevent breaches of security”.
This excuse had just moved along as needed from one group to another and was applied by those of the old guard any time prejudice needed to be overcome and they did not want to move.
In 1992, when lifting the ban on Gays and Lesbians in the military, General Carl Mundy Junior, Commandant of the Marine Corps, praised a paper authored by a Marine Corps chaplain that said that “In the unique, intensely close environment of the military, homosexual conduct can threaten the lives, including the physical and psychological well-being of others”.
A Navy spokesman expressed the opposition of many in the military at the time when he said, “Homosexuals are notoriously promiscuous” and that in shared shower situations, heterosexuals would have an “uncomfortable feeling of someone watching”.
This was the genesis of the narcissistic argument that straight soldiers would not be safe in the showers because, being so masculine and handsome, Gay soldiers would not be able to resist preying on them. This would later become the bathroom objection to Transgender rights.
Eventually a National Defense Research Institute study for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Sexual Orientation and U.S. Military Personnel Policy: Options and Assessment, concluded that “circumstances could exist under which the ban on homosexuals could be lifted with little or no adverse consequences for recruitment and retention”, and Gregory M. Herek, associate research psychologist and an authority on public attitudes toward lesbians and gay men, testified before the House Armed Services Committee that “The research data show that there is nothing about lesbians and gay men that makes them inherently unfit for military service, and there is nothing about heterosexuals that makes them inherently unable to work and live with gay people in close quarters. The assumption that heterosexuals cannot overcome their prejudices toward gay people is a mistaken one.”
In light of continued opposition to lifting the ban on Gays in the military, the Clinton Administration issued Defense Directive 1304.26, on December 21, 1993 which directed that military applicants were not to be asked about their sexual orientation, and Gays could be discharged if they mentioned their orientation or were found to have acted on it.
This began the time of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
“Don’t Ask” mandated that military or appointed officials would not ask about or require members to reveal their sexual orientation; “Don’t Tell” stated that a member may be discharged for claiming to be a homosexual or bisexual or making a statement indicating a tendency towards or intent to engage in homosexual activities; and the third, often ignored part, “Don’t Pursue”, established what was minimally required for an investigation to be initiated.
Again, as with integration of troops and women before them, it was accepted that, in spite of being wrong when it came to them, this time the claim would stick if applied to Gays and it was decided that homosexuality was incompatible with military service.
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With other countries having no problem with Gays in their military and with society basically growing up and seeing many anti-Gay tropes were just expressed bigotry, the underlying justifications for DADT began facing increasing suspicion and outright rejection by the early 21st century. Surveys of U.S. military personnel, and studies conducted by the Department of Defense showed that the presence of open homosexuals within the military would not be detrimental at all to the armed forces.
On November 30, 2010, the Joint Chiefs of Staff released the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Comprehensive Review Working Group (CRWG) outlining a path to the implementation of repeal of DADT. It indicated that there was a low risk of service disruptions due to repealing the ban, and included the results of a survey of 115,000 active-duty and reserve service members in which only 30% thought that integrating Gays into the military would have negative consequences, while 69% of all those surveyed believed they had already worked with a Gay or Lesbian service member and of those, 92^% reported that the impact of that person’s presence was positive or neutral.
In spite of the opposition from hangers on of incorrect, out of date, and non-reality, non-experiential based claims, Don’t ask/Don’t Tell died on September 20, 2011.
And that should have been it.
BUT:
Based on no evidence and having had no incidents that would have made in necessary, three years after the Obama administration told Transgender individuals they could serve openly and have access to gender-affirming medical and psychological care, Trump has reversed that and has begun to implement a version of “don’t ask, don’t tell” for trans service members that, while allowing currently serving transgender individuals who have already received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria to continue to serve in their actual gender, those with gender dysphoria who are taking hormones or have already undergone a gender transition will not be allowed to enlist.
Gender dysphoria is the distress a person experiences as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth as it does not match the person’s gender identity. It does not simply have psychological causes, but may also have biological causes.
Any currently serving troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria after April 12, 2019, will have to serve in their sex as assigned at birth and will be barred from taking hormones or getting gender-affirming surgery.
Trump’s initial call for the ban came by way of a tweet two years ago that caught the Pentagon off-guard and essentially forced the Defense Department to implement the ban.
He explained his action with this bit of confused reasoning,
“I have great respect for the community. I think I have great support — or I’ve had great support from that community. I got a lot of votes. But the transgender — the military is working on it now. They’re doing the work. It’s been a very difficult situation. And I think I’m doing a lot of people a favor by coming out and just saying it. As you know, it’s been a very complicated issue for the military. It’s been a very confusing issue for the military. And I think I’m doing the military a great favor.”
It actually wasn’t “a very complicated issue for the military”.
When questioned last October about his campaign promise to protect transgender people and his redefining gender, he responded,
“We’re looking at it. We have a lot of different concepts right now. They have a lot of different things happening with respect to transgender right now. You know that as well as I do, and we’re looking at it very seriously.”
He went on to say,
“You know what I’m doing? I’m protecting everybody. I want to protect our country.”
Who and from what?
In his initial announcement, Trump referred to those people he claims he has spoken with, although the ones he should have spoken with were taken by surprise, and he got very close to the traditional combat ready and unit cohesion objections to “others”.
“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you,”
According to the AMA,
“The only thing deficient is any medical science behind this decision. The AMA has said repeatedly that there is no medically valid reason — including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria — to exclude transgender individuals from military service. Transgender service members should, as is the case with all personnel, receive the medical care they need. There is a global medical consensus about the efficacy of transgender health care, including treatment for gender dysphoria.”
We now have the new Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell as the Pentagon has claimed the new policy doesn’t actually ban transgender people as long as they simply pretend they’re not Trans.