Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/25/biden-to-drop-military-transgender-ban.html
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That’s all well and good, but if there isn’t some legislation to prevent the next whackadoodle from reversing this, it won’t matter.
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“If you’re fit and you’re qualified to serve and you can maintain the standards, you should be allowed to serve.”
Right? Really not so difficult after all, and not just when discussing the military.
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Like going beyond executive order and Supreme Court decisions to revise the Civil Rights Act to explicitly include sexual orientation and gender identity.
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At the time the ban was proposed, military leaders both active and retired piped up to oppose it. Especially given The Rand Corporation, the military’s own thinktank had concluded a study that killed the arguments given against such bans.
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Frankly I’m disappointed that a no-brainer executive order like this one wasn’t included in the flurry of E.O.s that were issued on Biden’s very first day in office, unless they made some sort of calculated decision to announce this separately so that it would get its own news cycle and not get drowned out by the other stories.
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Crikey, the guy hasn’t been in office for a week and already he isn’t working fast enough? He’s done more actual presidential work on four business days than his predecessor did in years! Not a single tweet, not a single game of golf, not a single incomprehensible rant about perceived enemies-this is ok by me.
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I think that’s it. On the day, the final EO (putting it on everyone’s mind) was the one reminding everyone that the Supreme Court had ruled that discrimination against LGBTQ people is unconstitutional. Pro-LGBTQ moves are low-hanging fruit for a centrist that wants to lean left, but not too left, to scope out just how the GOP and media react.
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Draft the rich. We’ll have fewer wars.
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I keep reading that the second impeachment is a genuine drag on time and resources. The Dems already blew it by not pushing for a quickie trial, and I wouldn’t blame Biden for not wanting any more effort put into it now Trump’s obviously not going to be convicted.
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Truman ended racial segregation in the military by Executive Order and that policy still managed to take.
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There used to be a time when rich people had a tradition and sense of duty to serve in the military. Especially 2nd born sons who weren’t going to inherit the family fortune.
(They even make a point of it in the Kingsman films that the secret organization was funded by rich families who lost their sole heirs in WWI)
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True. But when Truman ended segregation in the military, African Americans were already serving openly in segregated units, since the 1860s, and they had served under White officers and NCOs who, by 1948, were already saying “no big deal.”
This is a whole different thing. Obama ended it in 2016 and it lasted a year. This will require legislation.
ETA: Edited for clarity about African Americans serving openly.
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Transgender people are already serving too, and have been for generations. Just like gay people had been serving for generations when Obama repealed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.
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Edited the above for clarity, which I wouldn’t have thought necessary. Seemed obvious that African Americans were serving openly, while transgender people had not been.
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So, exactly like the gay people that members of the military were used to serving alongside by the time Obama was out of office.
I agree that legislation would further protect the rights of transgender military members, but history has shown Executive Orders on this kind of thing can not only be very effective at creating lasting change but also push society forward a lot faster than waiting for congress to get with the times.
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Trump’s crimes need to go on the Congressional record and Senators’ votes on them need to be public. Although, I do agree that it would have been better to move faster. I suspect Pelosi and Schumer wanted to wait until Democrats had control of the Senate so McC couldn’t derail the process.
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African Americans didn’t have to hide their blackness prior to 1948 in the same way that transgender and gay people had to hide their nature before 2016. In the one year between Obama allowing it and Trump banning it again, transgender people didn’t serve in segregated units for less pay under specifically non-TG officers who, with institutional support, set out to humiliate, degrade, and oftentimes kill them. [Not saying it didn’t happen, but white officers and NGOs commanding Black troops had overt, public backing and often times cheerleading in their inhumane treatment of Black soldiers.]
Other than that, yes, exactly the same.
I’m saying the ban on transgender people is the same as the ban on gay people was.
Gay people once had to hide their sexual identity to serve, now they do not. Ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” played a big role in normalizing the idea of serving alongside gay people, to the point where it would now be both logistically impossible and socially unpopular for the military to try forcing those people back into the closet.
Executive Orders really can have a major and lasting impact on this kind of thing.
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Hey, at least one Major sounds really excited about the repeal:
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