DADT & The Trans- Military Personal

What most people don’t realize is that repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell only affected gays and lesbians in the military and it still left in place discrimination against transgender military personal. We are still being booted out of the military just because of who we are and not if we can do the job.

In Buzzfeed the other day they had an article by Chris Geidner about trans in the military…

Pentagon Recognizes Transgender Veteran, Advocates See A “Shift”
The Pentagon formally recognized earlier this month that there are transgender veterans — a step that LGBT advocates say is a long way from open transgender service in the military, but also a significant first step in that process.

In a short letter dated May 2, a Navy official told Autumn Sandeen, a veteran and transgender activist: “Per your request the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) has been updated to show your gender as female effective April 12, 2013.”
[…]
“The fact that a process exists [to change the gender listed] indicates that there are people in the Department of Defense who are aware of the needs of transgender retirees and who are working to see those needs met. And, in that sense, the significance of this symbolic act for our broader work and for our goal of open service becomes I think a little bit more apparent,” OutServe-SLDN executive director Allyson Robinson told BuzzFeed.

And there is also a call for proposal about a study of trans-military personal…

Transgender Military Initiative: Call for Proposals - 2013

Palm Center Call for Proposals 2013

The Palm Center is commissioning 11 studies to enhance the quality of information available for evaluating transgender service in the United States military. The studies seek to answer questions related to readiness, morale, welfare, personnel requirements and management. Deadline to apply, June 15, 2013.

Scope: The research should employ social science methodology. The final product should be a study of publishable quality by a peer-reviewed journal.

How to Apply: Applicants should send proposals to Indra Lusero via email at: lusero@palmcenter.org. Proposals should explain the research design and methodology, and include a timetable, institutional affiliation (if any), reference list and author CV.

Selection Criteria: Proposals will be evaluated based on the scope of the proposed research, quality of research design, the potential quality of the data, clarity of the author’s writing, and the author’s background and publication history. Interested authors are encouraged to review this Palm Center publication for an example of acceptable work.

Compensation: The Palm Center will pay between $10,000 and $15,000 for the completed study, depending on the author’s experience and scope of the proposal.

There will be a CFP for,

• Cost and complexity of care
• Discrimination and readiness
• Foreign militaries and transgender service
• Institutional privacy accommodations
• Organizational effectiveness and transgender inclusion
• Physical standards and transgender service
• Privacy in the US military
• Transgender sports
• Transgender medical accommodation
• Uniform regulations
• US military accommodation of serious medical conditions

My only comments on the study are that you shouldn't have to base human rights on a study and that $15,000 is not a lot of money to do a study. If the fifteen thousand is just to cover the proposal than that is about right, but a real study should be funded to over $100,000.

You can find out more about trans-people in the military at  Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) and OutServe-SLDN (Servicemembers Legal Defense Network) websites