Slashdot Mirror
Tech Leaders Speak Out Against Trump Ban on Transgender Troops (axios.com)
Technology executives, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai took to social media to voice their displeasure over President Donald Trump's latest stance on transgendered people in the military.
"I am grateful to the transgender members of the military for their service," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said, "We are indebted to all who serve. Discrimination against anyone holds everyone back."
Brad Smith, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer said, "We honor and respect all who serve, including the transgender members of our military."
Salesforce said it "believes in equality for all. We support and thank all U.S. service members, including transgender Americans."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "Everyone should be able to serve their country -- no matter who they are."
Veteran entrepreneur Max Levchin urged support for transgender people across party lines. "Trans kids, soldiers etc need our support today and to know they are valued & respected regardless of politics. Let us not be divided."
Uber told news outlet Axios, "We owe the deepest debt of gratitude to all those who volunteer to serve in the US Armed Forces and defend our values. These patriotic Americans deserve to be honored and respected, not turned away because of who they are."
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said, "Discrimination in any form is wrong for all of us."
"I am grateful to the transgender members of the military for their service," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said, "We are indebted to all who serve. Discrimination against anyone holds everyone back."
Brad Smith, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer said, "We honor and respect all who serve, including the transgender members of our military."
Salesforce said it "believes in equality for all. We support and thank all U.S. service members, including transgender Americans."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "Everyone should be able to serve their country -- no matter who they are."
Veteran entrepreneur Max Levchin urged support for transgender people across party lines. "Trans kids, soldiers etc need our support today and to know they are valued & respected regardless of politics. Let us not be divided."
Uber told news outlet Axios, "We owe the deepest debt of gratitude to all those who volunteer to serve in the US Armed Forces and defend our values. These patriotic Americans deserve to be honored and respected, not turned away because of who they are."
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said, "Discrimination in any form is wrong for all of us."
Stick to tech, stop whining about military policies that have nothing to do with your fucking industries. Bunch of fucking phonies, every last fucking one of them.
The policy this is reversing has only existed about a year. Why are people acting like there was a trans brigade charging the shores of Normandy?
I think this may be the most irrelevant /. submission ever.
You say discrimination is wrong yet you actively censor things you don't like. Also don't you have a couple of sex discrimination lawsuit up against you?
...of one of those companies.
Make it about what mega-rich corporate lords say about it.
All that stuff he said last fall about LGBT rights was just him being "all things to all people", which he might've even stuck with if everything had gone well.
But nothing has gone well. Now he needs his base to back him, especially if he fires Sessions and Mueller.
It'd be be a good idea if the more obnoxious people (Zuckerberg, Trump, et al) would stay out of the conversation so the rest of us could focus on the objective facts without having the sickening feeling that we have to agree with one of them. I'm sure they won't shut up but maybe we could agree not to report on what they say?
This has confused me... Isn't transgender just people who identify as the opposite gender but don't have surgery performed?
Whereas transexual requires some sort of bodily change?
Or is this just a case of society becoming scared of using the word "sexual" and saying gender?
Tech leaders, you can swiftly fuck off. Your comments here are about as relevant as your opinions on the banana trade. Only that bastion of hell you reside in, silly valley, that has its dark claim on your soul speaks like this.
A direct result of this failed bill to forbid money from being spent by the military’s health care system for medical treatment related to gender transition.
People with mental illness were already prevented from joining the military before this so this is really no change. A group with a 40 percent suicide rate and people expect us to put guns in their hands? I can see post transition and post operation trans participating but while make a transition is just too crazy. Also in my life 99% of every trans person I have met is or was addicted to drugs.
Creimer is a fat lady in the body of an obese man who never got laid because he can't find his own pussy to stick the dick in. We know creimer is really a woman because all of his ebooks have female main characters who definitely know where their pussies are. Creimer lays cock eggs with his dick just like a hen in the body of a rooster. And to compensate for his confusion our creimer fucks fish.
or other things that actually do matter.
So the US military will cease to be the target of more progressive social experiments for a few years. End of the world stuff right there; the virtuepocalypse is upon us!
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Regardless of what your personal feelings are about the man and his policies, it has to be acknowledged that this was an excellent political play on President Trump's part.
On one hand, what he's proposing is very sane policy. We've seen how disruptive "social justice" has been to so many other organizations. Preventing it from disrupting the military is quite a sensible thing to do. The military leadership will support his policy. Nearly all enlisted and veteran military personnel will support it, too.
This will also retain the support of pretty much all conservative voters, as well as attract the support of many centrists and even some leftists who are fed up with all of the "social justice" nonsense that has been going on.
He's riled up the leftist crowd, and gotten many of them frothing-at-the-mouth angry. While his tweets are calm, measured and presidential, the response we've seen from leftists has been unrestrained, wild, and even absurd. This makes leftists look even worse in the eyes of nearly all non-leftists.
He's also now tricked, essentially, a lot of leftists into contradicting themselves. Leftists have generally been opposed to the military, yet he's now got them begging to be let in! He's got them saying they want to be involved in armed conflicts and war, despite leftists speaking out against such actions.
There are now leftists who are even suggesting that it's their right to serve in the military, regardless of their physical condition or other attributes. So now if there are future conflicts that involve military drafts, the leftists won't be able to justifiably say they don't want to serve. After all, now they're saying it's their right to be members!
With just a few sentences he's thrown his political opponents into a complete tizzy, to the point where their hypocrisy and contradictory views are becoming more and more apparent.
When a major policy change is announced, Silicon Valley has to prove their devotion.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
So what else is new? Fags running faggy un-American companies support fruits, fairies, and fags.
We all will have a good laugh in a couple years when the Slashdot headline reads 'Tech Leaders Die of AIDS". Or better yet "Slashdot Editors Die of AIDS".
Each one of these boiz needs to be taken out back for a good "talkin' to".
I'm getting more and more suspicious these are just distractors... Keep an eye out for quietly enacted legislation in the coming week under the cover of the media frenzy.
Trump is Trash and so are the people who support him
wait until $trump_decision != '';
foreach $personality ( @leftwing )
{
send_to_twitter( $personality . " is outraged at Trump for " . $trump_decision );
}
... praising other mentally ill people. This is "news that matter"?
Why do I care what CEOs and Tech managers think? We need to stop going to these people for their opinions on politics. Google, Microsoft, Uber, Apple...they should all stick to what they do best, tech.
They've spent years and years in the military!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I am a Vet and a SGT. They already serve. They are in the service and are part of the human race. Ignorance is not bliss. Trumps myopic perspective ignorant at best and bigoted at worst.
wait, let's get this straight because I've been struggling with this and trying to get the terms right so I don't offend anyone for calling them gay when they're really lesbian or transexual. Or not calling them a transvestite when they are really transexual but not transgender.
Transgender = phsyically one thing but identify as another.
Transexual = spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to physically change because you cannot accept yourself the way you were born.
Now, I have seen transgender women who identify as men and prefer to sleep with men - I guess they're a straight guy trapped in a woman's body or something.
I for one am transgender. I am a woman trapped in a man's body but I am a butch lesbian. I won't go for surgery because I really enjoy the dick and rug munching can be tiring on the tongue.
F-35 program costing way too much money: President Orangeface McSmallhands says he'll go to Boeing and get a better deal
Trans people in the military costing a maximum of $8 million per year: "Oh no, that's too expensive, we can't do that"
Who manage to avoid paying as much in tax as possible are now going to tell us how government should be run?
Get out your checkbooks fellas and start paying up for the military sex changes. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.
Seriously.
As someone who spent seven years in active service, and trained many soldiers in Canada, worrying about someone's sexual orientation or whatever was dead last on my concerns. As in never spent a moment thinking about it, or caring about it.
Are we sure he's sane?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Or... he has some superbad news he needs to distract from (1), ergo... the CrazyTweet defence.
(1) They have 20 hours to pass a black-box healthcare bill by Thursday
Can't answer those, you have an opinion, and no one cares, because if you haven't served, you don't get to have any input on this issue. When your life is on the line, and your buddies lives on the line, do you really want someone pumped full or hormones their body isn't used to, and wouldn't naturally have in the most stressful environments on the planet? Outside of that its an undue burden to require the military to pay for Millions of dollars of treatment to convert their bodies. Don't block people from modding their bodies, but don't require the US Government to pay for it either, they waste enough money on their own without a new way to spend tons of money.
just to be the devils advocate here, should I be able to join the military? I am 57 years old
(referring to the quote, "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said, "Discrimination in any form is wrong for all of us.")
thoughts?
How many of them have actually carried a weapon in battle for the US?
The bigger issue is not what the Trans thinks of themselves, it is not making the Army pay for the surgeries.
If you ban them, then you don't pay for the surgery.
Discrimination against anyone holds everyone back
How many 5 year olds are allowed to enlist? 92 year olds? This sounds like age discrimination
What about paraplegics and quadriplegics? More discrimination.
Diabetics will almost never be accepted, and in very rare cases a person who becomes diabetic may be able to get a waiver to stay in, but the vast majority of the time it's an automatic discharge.
A man missing one or both testicles due to a congenital disorder will also be disqualified. Hell, there have been people who were disqualified for their testicles being too large.
I really don't care what people want to identify as or what their sexual preferences are. But there are simply some cases where these things matter. If a transgender individual can't get their hormone medication, how is that going to affect their emotions or ability to do their job? What if they get captured by an enemy? What about being deployed in a country that has the death penalty for being transgender? This is the military, not a tech company in Silicon Valley. Hell, the tech industry seems to have difficulty with how they treat women. Perhaps they should work on that since women are around 50% of the population.
I don't know what the solution is, but a bunch of billionaires who never served in the military, who can't lead the men in their company to treat women as equals really don't' have an opinion that the military should worry about.
Fuck all discrimination except age discrimination, right Google??
with the previous (several weeks ago) news announcing a new policy to protect women in uniform, with guns, from words and pictures, from men.
If there's one thing I like about this country, we'll say or do anything to appease everyone, except men.
I don't want someone in uniform who will be using a rifle to defend this country to require protection from a man with a camera.
captcha: shipmate
You could have said 1 year after the end of the segregation/miscegenation laws the same thing. Length of existence of a policy is not a good argument for or against or for its validity. The only valid argument I see are : 1) are the TG folk mentally fit enough ? 2) are the TG folk physically fit enough. (2) is answered already by exam at the start and (1) should be answered with time and possibly exams, or study on TG psychology/psychiatry. But nothing about time a policy existed makes for a valid argument.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Trump is desperate to distract everyone from the Russia investigation, so he needs to throw out something fresh and tasty for the media to chew on
Not a one of those "tech leaders" has ever served in the military so they have no bases on which to state their option on the subject.
I just happened to know a (conservative republican!!!) woman who was VFW Women's Auxillary, only because the men were douchebags about letting women in the regular VFW. She was an active duty female personnel member during WW2, I don't remember what branch, but she had full veteran benefits and everything.
The sexism that continued to go on after the war and in the years since, despite the number of female military personnel who climbed up the ranks is pretty terrible.
They might not win in a stand up fight against a man, but this is America, the primary thing we learned from the revolutionary war is you don't fight fair against a stronger opponent. Unfortunately it seems we unlearn it a bit more with every year as we become a form of establishment exactly like what we were supposedly rebelling against (although, in fairness, we more or less have since giving up on the Confederation and becoming the Union in... 1782?)
Tech execs, feel free to stay in your comfy, air-conditioned offices and to stfu when it comes to battlefield decisions.
When tech leaders start running the military they can form policy on what makes a good military.
Until then, their statements are pointless.
Military readiness has no room for SJW nonsense, which is undermining everything it touches.
is to free the fed govt from liability for paying for the elective transformation process for people with dysmorphia
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The edge is off the charts.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
Back in the bad old days being transsexual was a medical matter to be treated. Once you were done you got on with your life as a man or a woman.
Now being trans is trendy. It's political. It's self-expression. Endless whining about privilege and pronouns.
Old-school folks (like yours truly) quietly get on with our lives and have few issues in life or anywhere else. I've done well and would probably have done fine in the military. Trans-trender snowflakes, on the other hand...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
^exactly, this is so obvious.
We are going about this all wrong! We worry about transgender recruits, but isn't this a missed opportunity?
We should be recruiting transloyalty people! Are they on our side? Are they working for the enemy? Are they working both sides against the middle? Are they double-agents, triple agents, quadruple agents!?
We throw them into battle and who knows how it all plays out? Our enemies are baffled! Our leaders are confused! A column of troops marches towards the front and maybe they fight, maybe they defect! Maybe they sit down and play Texas Hold 'Em! Anything is possible!!
Sure, give them guns, but do we give them ammo? Live rounds? Training rounds? Flags that say "Bang!"?
You thought you knew Reality TV, but this could make Realer Than Real TV!!
You really have never been in the field, have you?
The only time anyone cares about which restroom is which is when you're in some comfy place that isn't in the field.
It's not high school, junior.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Trump has not been doing well on the current political fronts (hilariously poor speeches, Russia collusion), so it's a good call for him to shift discussion. To be clear, I think the Russia stuff is mostly a matter of stupidity/greed (with a healthy dose of anachronistic RED SCARE) rather than high treason or something, but nonetheless these stories are not going in Trump's favor (and his previous attempts at handling/distraction have been super feeble, eg. Clinton has Russia ties too!) ..so it's a good idea for him to shift the discussion to a more traditional right-left battlefield: a moral panic. Here, his part is much simpler to play: "oh no, the ~new thing~ is going to destroy the foundation of our society/military/families" - and this particular subject is great because the left will respond predictably in a way that will alienate around half the country. From Trump's perspective, much better to focus on a polarizing issue where he has 45% support and a clear game plan, than let focus stay on his bumbling kids and their stupid Russian entanglements.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
None of these Tech leaders of the companies served a day in the military. It's bunk. I am taking Elon Musk's position and calling their understanding "limited".
I don't know about the tech elites but I for one really want the best and brightest fighting for my freedoms.
The tech elites seem to only want to take my freedoms and privacy.
That Trump's ban on transgendered people in the military is a blessing for pacifists! They will only need to declare being transgendered (most possibly, pre-op) to avoid draft. How would the army verify that you are not transgender?
I can't stand Trump, think he's already the worst President in our history, but I have no problems with this decision. I'm an army brat, I was in ROTC, went to basic, had all the training to be a military officer (just never signed up), and I know 1st hand and personally of people being either kicked out or prohibited from joining for all kinds of medical issues, some of them ancient history, some of their mildly debilitation. The idea that someone is going to physically alter their body in extremely intrusive fashion that requires all kinds of lifetime medical and even surgical regimens to maintain them and the military is supposed to 1.) pay for it 2.) make concessions for the other commitments to that surgery; is a real head scratcher.
My only problem is Trump obviously did it as another one of his twitter shiny bauble, public debate distractions.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
To protect the USA by being able to kill people and break things anywhere on demand as quickly and efficiently as possible... Not to be some social or environmental experiment.
This whole LGBT* being allowed in the military debate looks more like a social experiment than being about the military's primary mission to me. It's about as pointless as using renewable "green" fuel to power a long range bomber on a thermal Nuclear strike. You are really concerned about CO2 emissions when you are dropping a nuclear bomb?
IF some idea or policy doesn't enhance the military's ability to kill people and break things, then it's a bad idea or policy for the military. There should be no arguments about the military that is not about how to fulfill it's purpose with the most efficient, most accurate and quickest way possible, with perhaps a thought about if we can actually afford to do without it based on cost. Full Stop.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Oh boy, tech leaders offering their opinion on how the military conducts training. Next week: the US Army telling Facebook how to do social media
That's why!
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
As far i know, this was done to stop people from joining the army, getting a free sex change operation and leaving the army.
Trump tried the saner "just block pentagon from paying for sex surgeries" approach first, and it got blocked, so this is the end result.
Personally I'm conflicted about this.
On the one hand, let'em serve on the front line and they simply don't have time to whine about microaggressive discrimination or whatever.
On the other hand, if they're not on the front line they'll whine about safe spaces, so you'll run the risk they'll tie down your PR, HR, and legal departments to the point your military is so tied up in damage control press conferences, bullshit sensitivity trainings, and expensive red tape, that the front line ends up having to take care of itself.
Of course, the real problem is that it's the SJWs that militantly whine through bullhorns, not the supposedly downtrodden micro-sized group of downtrodden shmucks of the week. Because the real gender-issued special snowflakes are really small group of the population, but SJWs much less so, and SJWs are each louder and more attention-seeking than about a score normal people.
So I'll support forcibly drafting SJWs into shock troop infantry with a fast track to the hottest front lines like the Russians did with their criminals. Problem solved.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said, "Discrimination in any form is wrong for all of us."
Yet he's happy to do it when it can hurt conservatives.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
the drag queens of US army lol...
Want to run the military?
Tech execs in particular those in Silicon Valley live in a great filter bubble/echo chamber that distorts their view on reality.
NOT a good mental state to take military decisions.
So that's that.
The anecdote of 1 TG cannot lead to a suggestion of anything whatsoever. Statistic do not work that way. But with respect to suicide , that was what the point I was hinting at with peer review - you also have to look at why the suicide are done BTW and whether the reason of those are likely to happen in military situation (training camp, combat etc...). It could be that properly studied , we find that the situation leading to those suicide is unlikely in military and make TG even better soldat (unlikely but could be - the point is not to act on prejudice)
That still that does not make length a policy was alive a factor worth looking at, which was my point of contention.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It may be worth noting that Trump did not do anything. He simply tweeted something. I am fairly certain, that Trump knows the difference between a tweet and an executive order. That means he didn't decide to throw transgender people out of the military (lots of them are already serving), but decided to communicate about military and transgender.
There are a lot of theories on what Trump's tweets are supposed to achieve. One I found pretty interesting was this: Trump doesn't have a stake in decency or respect for the office of the president or integrity of the government or any of those things. But other people do. So they are forced to react. Because they care. Trump himself doesn't. He keeps people busy that way. And he keeps himself in the spotlight.
Two reasons Trump is coming out with this shit now:
1. Draw attention away from the Russia investigation.
2. Naked populism. Most Americans dislike LGBT, so he's throwing them a fucking bone. Gets their nubs hard knowing they're shitting on a minority.
Being manipulated quite so effectively by a narcissistic moron does not reflect well on you, but then neither did electing the odious cunt in the first place.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Let the cross dressers serve, but send them out in the first asssult wave.
These two are making noise about the trans issue when the real issue should be their anti-competitive business practices. They are running monopolies at the expense of the people! These companies need to be broken up.
Who cares what Tech Leaders think regarding this subject? I want to hear the opinions of military, medical, psychology, logistical etc.
A quote by the late Bill Hicks: "Anyone dumb enough to want to be in the military should be allowed in. End of fucking story. That should be the only requirement. I don't care how many push-ups you can do – put on a helmet, go wait in that fox hole. We'll tell you when we need you to kill somebody. I've been watching all these Congressional hearings and all these military guys and all the pundits going, "The esprit de corps will be affected, and we are such a moral " Excuse me, but aren't you all a bunch of fucking hired killers? Shut up! You are thugs, and when we need you to go blow the fuck out of a nation of little brown people, we'll let you know. Until then "
I understand the drugs and operations to switch gender are exceedingly costly. Let the transgenders pay these costs out of their pockets if the military hires them. Currently I was told they would have to pay hundreds of K per year. The military could use such money to increse salaries for everyone else much more
usefully.
Does anyone have numbers on how many people this affects?
As in, how many are currently in the military and how many join per year on average?
The only T guy I knew (we didn't know, then - that was his affair, not ours) made a great M career, and then transitioned gracefully to F - changed his (her) job to manage something more socially-sensitive, and is probably in line for a national award for community service just now. Nobody would know, unless the scarf slipped to reveal the 'adam's apple', and surely no one need care. I can't see that progress happenning well in any military environment, in any country at all.
We are talking about 0.03% of the US population here... How about the rest of us, the 299,910,000 who are NOT trans whatever?
Transgender politics has nothing to do with technology.
Right now, answer: are you, or someone in your immediate family, or your church, RIGHT NOW volunteering to join the military to replace trans folk who will be forced to leave?
And if you have no one, then STFU.
"Everyone should be able to serve their country -- no matter who they are."
I have a big problem with that quote. The implication is that the only way people can server their country is via the military. This is a False Choice. Furthermore, you can easily serve as part of a Gov't Contractor, Gov't Employee, that is not directly tied to the Military and server your country, and that's just for jobs where the salary comes from Uncle sam in some form.
Let us not forget there are many who serve in other ways, in police, fire, medical, rescue and forestry services. Non profit organizations that feed the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Can we cut through the bull crap here? Not everyone is cut out to be a soldier, that's not a defect, and it is not discrimination as far as I am concerned. No, that's just life.
Estimated costs of supporting trans : $8m
Amount spent by miltary on viagra : $80m
This isn't about the cost
The military is not a place for someone to undergo sexual transformation. And especially not footing the bill either.
It's a place for men with guns to learn how to kill people.
If you want to transform you body, best to do it elsewhere.